3   1822  01195  7768 


f!)l 

'25 


Ptriotis  of  lEuropean  ILttcraturc 

EDITED   BY 

PEOFESSOR    SAINTSBURY 


IL 

THE    TWELFTH   AND    THIKTEENTH 
CENTUPiIES 


PERIODS   OF   EUROPEAN    LITERATURE. 

Edited  by  Professor  SAINTSBURY. 


"  The  criticism  which  alone  can  micch  help  us  for  the  future 
is  a  criticism  which  regards  Europe  as  being,  for  intellectual 
and  spiritual  purposes,  one  great  confederation,  hound  to  a  joint 
action  and  xoorking  to  a  common  residt." 

—Matthew  Arnold. 


In  12  Crown  8vo  Volumes.     Price  5s.  net  each. 


The  DARK  AGES 

The     FLOURISHING      OF      ROMANCE 
AND    THE    RISE    OF    ALLEGORY. 
Tlie   FOURTEENTH   CENTURY 
The  TRANSITION  PERIOD       . 
The  EARLIER  RENAISSANCE 
The  LATER  RENAISSANCE     . 
Tlie  FIRST   HALF  of  17th  CENTURY  . 
The  AUGUSTAN  AGES      .... 
The  MID-EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 
The  ROMANTIC   REVOLT 
The  ROMANTIC  TRIUMPH      . 
Tlie  LATER  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 


Piofessor  W.  P.  Kf.r. 


The  Editor. 
F.  J.  Snell. 


D.wiD  Hannay. 

Oliver  Elton. 

Edmund  Gosse. 
Walter  H.  Pollock. 
The  Editor. 


WILLIAM   BLACKWOOD  &  SONS,  Edinburgh  and  London. 


THE 


FLOURISHING   OF   ROMANCE 


RISE   OF   ALLEGOKY 


GEOKGE    SAINTSBUEY,   M.A. 

PROFESSOR    or   RHETORIC   AND    ENGLISH    LITERATURE   IN  TH»: 
CNIVERSITY    OF    EDINBURGH 


iN'  L  W      Y  O  R  K 

CHAKLES     S  CRIB  NEK'S     SONS 

153-157    FIFTH    AVENUE 
1897 


All  Kiyliii  reserved 


PREFACE. 


As  this  volume,  although  not  the  first  in  chronological 
order,  is  likely  to  be  the  first  to  appear  in  the  Series 
of  which  it  forms  part,  and  of  which  the  author  has 
the  honour  to  be  editor,  it  may  be  well  to  say  a  few 
words  here  as  to  the  scheme  of  this  Series  generally. 
When  that  scheme  was  first  sketched,  it  was  neces- 
sarily objected  that  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impos- 
sible, to  obtain  contributors  who  could  boast  intimate 
and  equal  knowledge  of  all  the  branches  of  European 
literature  at  any  given  time.  To  meet  this  by  a 
simple  denial  was,  of  course,  not  to  be  thought  of. 
Even  universal  linguists,  though  not  unknown,  are 
not  very  common ;  and  universal  linguists  have  not 
usually  been  good  critics  of  any,  much  less  of  all, 
literature.  But  it  could  be  answered  that  if  the  main 
principle  of  the  scheme  was  sound — that  is  to  say,  if  it 


VI  PREFACE. 

was  really  desirable  not  to  supplant  but  to  supplement 
the  histories  of  separate  literatures,  such  as  now  exist 
in  great  numbers,  by  something  like  a  new  "  Hallam," 
which  should  take  account  of  all  the  simultaneous 
and  contemporary  developments  and  their  interaction 
— some  sacrifice  in  point  of  specialist  knowledge  of 
individual  literatures  not  only  must  be  made,  but 
might  be  made  with  little  damage.  And  it  could  be 
further  urged  that  this  sacrifice  might  be  reduced  to  a 
minimum  by  selecting  in  each  case  writers  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  the  literature  which  happened  to  be 
of  greatest  prominence  in  the  special  period,  provided 
always  that  their  general  literary  knowledge  and 
critical  habits  were  such  as  to  render  them  capable 
of  giving  a  fit  account  of  the  rest. 

In  the  carrying  out  of  such  a  scheme  occasional 
deficiencies  of  specialist  dealing,  or  even  of  specialist 
knowledge,  must  be  held  to  be  compensated  by  range 
of  handling  and  width  of  view.  And  though  it  is  in 
all  such  cases  hopeless  to  appease  what  has  been 
called  "  the  rage  of  the  specialist "  himself — though 
a  Mezzofanti  doubled  with  a  Sainte-Beuve  could  never, 
in  any  general  history  of  European  literature,  hope  to 
satisfy  the  special  devotees  of  Eoumansch  or  of  Platt- 
Deutsch,  not  to  mention  those  of  the  greater  languages 


PEEFACE.  Vll 

— yet  there  may,  I  hope,  be  a  sufficient  public  who, 
recognising  the  advantage  of  the  end,  will  make 
a  fair  allowance  for  necessary  shortcomings  in  the 
means. 

As,  however,  it  is  quite  certain  that  there  will  be 
some  critics,  if  not  some  readers,  who  will  not  make 
this  allowance,  it  seemed  only  jv^st  that  the  Editor 
should  bear  the  brunt  in  this  new  Passage  Perilous. 
I  shall  state  very  frankly  the  qualifications  which 
I  think  I  may  advance  in  regard  to  this  volume.  I 
believe  I  have  read  most  of  the  French  and  English 
literature  proper  of  the  period  that  is  in  print,  and 
much,  if  not  most,  of  the  German.  T  know  somewhat 
less  of  Icelandic  and  Provencal ;  less  still  of  Spanish 
and  Italian  as  regards  this  period,  but  something  also 
of  them  :  Welsh  and  Irish  I  know  only  in  translations. 
Now  it  so  happens  that — for  the  period — French  is, 
more  than  at  any  other  time,  the  capital  literature  of 
Europe.  Very  much  of  the  rest  is  directly  translated 
from  it ;  still  more  is  imitated  in  form.  All  the  great 
subjects,  the  great  matidres,  are  French  in  their  early 
treatment,  with  the  exception  of  the  national  work  of 
Spain,  Iceland,  and  in  part  Germany.  All  the  forms, 
except  those  of  the  prose  saga  and  its  kinsman  the 
German  verse  folk -epic,  are  found  first  in  French. 


vm  PKEFACE. 

Whosoever  knows  the  French  literature  of  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries,  knows  not  merely  the  best 
literature  in  form,  and  all  but  the  best  in  matter,  of 
the  time,  but  that  which  all  the  time  was  imitating,  or 
shortly  about  to  imitate,  both  in  form  and  matter. 

Again,  England  presents  during  this  time,  though 
no  great  English  work  written  "  in  the  English  tongue 
for  English  men,"  yet  the  spectacle,  unique  in  history, 
of  a  language  and  a  literature  undergoing  a  sea-change 
from  which  it  was  to  emerge  with  incomparably 
greater  beauty  and  strength  than  it  had  before,  and 
in  condition  to  vie  with — some  would  say  to  outstrip 
— all  actual  or  possible  rivals.  German,  if  not  quite 
supreme  in  any  way,  gives  an  interesting  and  fairly 
representative  example  of  a  chapter  of  national  literary 
history,  less  brilliant  and  original  in  performance  than 
the  Erench,  less  momentous  and  unique  in  promise 
than  the  English,  but  more  normal  than  either,  and 
furnishing  in  the  epics,  of  which  the  Nihelunyenlied 
and  Kudrun  are  the  chief  examples,  and  in  the  best 
work  of  the  Minnesingers,  things  not  only  of  historical 
but  of  intrinsic  value  in  all  but  the  highest  degree. 

ProvenQal  and  Icelandic  literature  at  this  time  are 
both  of  them  of  far  greater  intrinsic  interest  than 
English,  if  not  than  German,  and  they  are  infinitely 


PREFACE.  IX 

more  original.  But  it  so  happens  that  the  promin- 
ent qualities  of  form  in  the  first,  of  matter  and 
spirit  in  the  second,  though  intense  and  delightful, 
are  not  very  complicated,  various,  or  wide-ranging. 
If  monotony  were  not  by  association  a  question-begging 
word,  it  might  be  applied  with  much  justice  to  both : 
and  it  is  consequently  not  necessary  to  have  read 
every  Icelandic  saga  in  the  original,  every  Proven(^al 
lyric  with  a  strictly  philological  competence,  in  order 
to  appreciate  the  literary  value  of  the  contributions 
which  these  two  charming  isolations  made  to  Euro- 
pean history. 

Yet  again,  the  production  of  Spain  during  this  time 
is  of  the  smallest,  containing,  perhaps,  nothing  save 
the  Poem  of  the  Cid,  which  is  at  once  certain  in  point  of 
time  and  distinguished  in  point  of  merit ;  while  that 
of  Italy  is  not  merely  dependent  to  a  great  extent  on 
Provencal,  but  can  be  better  handled  in  connection 
with  Dante,  who  falls  to  the  province  of  the  writer 
of  tlie  next  volume.  The  Celtic  tongues  were  either 
past  or  not  come  to  their  chief  performance ;  and  it  so 
happens  that,  by  the  confession  of  the  most  ardent 
Celticists  who  speak  as  scholars,  no  Welsh  or  Irish 
texts  affecting  the  capital  question  of  the  Arthurian 
legends  can  be  certainly  attributed  to  the  twelfth  or 


X  PREFACE. 

early  thirteenth  centuries.  It  seemed  to  me,  there- 
fore, that  I  might,  without  presumption,  undertake  the 
volume.  Of  the  execution  as  apart  from  the  under- 
taking others  must  judge.  I  will  only  mention  (to 
show  that  the  book  is  not  a  mere  compilation)  that 
the  chapter  on  the  Arthurian  Eomances  summarises, 
for  the  first  time  in  print,  the  result  of  twenty  years' 
independent  study  of  the  subject,  and  that  the  views 
on  prosody  given  in  chapter  v.  are  not  borrowed  from 
any  one. 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  less  as  a  matter  of  personal 
explanation,  which  is  generally  superfluous  to  friends 
and  never  disarms  foes,  than  in  order  to  explain  and 
illustrate  the  principle  of  the  Series.  All  its  volumes 
have  been  or  will  be  allotted  on  the  same  principle — 
that  of  occasionally  postponing  or  antedating  detailed 
attention  to  the  literary  production  of  countries  which 
were  not  at  the  moment  of  the  first  consequence,  while 
giving  greater  prominence  to  those  that  were :  but  at 
the  same  time  never  losing  sight  of  the  general  literary 
drift  of  the  whole  of  Europe  during  the  whole  period 
in  each  case.  It  is  to  guard  against  such  loss  of  sight 
that  the  plan  of  committing  each  period  to  a  single 
writer,  instead  of  strapping  together  bundles  of  in- 
dependent essays  by  specialists,  has  been  adopted.    Tor 


PREFACE.  XI 

a  survey  of  each  time  is  what  is  aijiied  at,  and  a  survey 
is  not  to  be  satisfactorily  made  but  by  one  pair  of 
eyes.  As  the  individual  study  of  different  literatures 
deepens  and  widens,  these  surveys  may  be  more  and 
more  difficult :  they  may  have  to  be  made  more  and 
more  "  by  allowance."  But  they  are  also  more  and 
more  useful,  not  to  say  more  and  more  necessary,  lest 
a  deeper  and  wider  ignorance  should  accompany  the 
deeper  and  wider  knowledge. 

The  dangers  of  this  ignorance  will  hardly  be  denied, 
and  it  would  be  invidious  to  produce  examples  of  them 
from  writings  of  the  present  day.  But  there  can  be 
nothing  ungenerous  in  referring — honoris,  not  invidice 
causa — to  one  of  the  very  best  literary  histories  of 
this  or  any  century,  Mr  Tickuor's  Spanish  Literature. 
There  was  perhaps  no  man  of  his  time  who  was  more 
widely  read,  or  who  used  his  reading  with  a  steadier 
industry  and  a  better  judgment,  than  Mr  Ticknor. 
Yet  the  remarks  on  assonance,  and  on  long  mono- 
rhymed  or  single  -  assonanced  tirades,  in  his  note  on 
Berceo  {History  of  Spanish  Literature,  vol.  i.  p.  '21), 
show  almost  entire  ignorance  of  the  whole  prosody 
of  the  chansons  dc  gcste,  which  give  such  an  indis- 
pensable light  in  reference  to  the  subject,  and  which, 
even  at  the  time  of  his  first  edition  (1849),  if  not 


Xll  PREFACE. 

quite  so  well  known  as  they  are  to-day,  existed  in 
print  in  fair  numbers,  and  had  been  repeatedly  handled 
by  scholars.  It  is  against  such  mishaps  as  this  that 
we  are  here  doing  our  best  to  supply  a  guard.^ 

^  One  of  the  most  difficult  points  to  decide  concerned  the  allowance 
of  notes,  bibliographical  or  other.  It  seemed,  on  the  whole,  better 
not  to  overload  such  a  Series  as  this  with  them  ;  but  an  attempt  has 
been  made  to  supply  the  reader,  who  desires  to  carry  his  studies  fur- 
ther, with  references  to  the  best  editions  of  the  principal  texts  and 
the  best  monographs  on  the  subjects  of  the  different  chapters.  I 
have  scarcely  in  these  notes  mentioned  a  single  book  that  I  have  not 
myself  used  ;  but  I  have  not  mentioned  a  tithe  of  those  that  I  have 
used. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    I. 


THE   FUNCTION   OF   LATIN. 


Reasons  for  uot  noticing  the  bulk  of  medieval  Latin  literature — 
Excepted  divisions — Comic  Latin  literature — Examples  of  its 
verbal  influence — The  value  of  bixrlesque — Hymns — The  Dies 
Irce  —  The  rhythm  of  Bernard  —  Literary  perfection  of  the 
Hymns — Scholastic  Philosojihy — Its  influence  on  jjhrase  and 
method — The  great  Scholastics   ..... 


CHAPTER    II. 

CHANSONS    DE    GESTE. 

European  literature  in  1100 — Late  discovery  of  the  chansons — 
Their  age  and  history — Their  distinguishiug  character — Mis- 
takes about  them — Their  isolation  and  origin — Their  metrical 
form— Their  scheme  of  matter — The  character  of  Charlemagne 
—  Other  characters  and  characteristics  —  Realist  quality  — 
Volume  and  age  of  the  c/(«??so?is  —  Twelfth  century  —  Thir- 
teenth century — Fourteenth,  and  later — Chansons  in  print — 
Language  :  oc  and  oil — Italian — Dift'usion  of  the  chansons — 
Their  authorship  and  publication — Their  performance — Hear- 
ing, not  reading,  the  object — Eff'ect  on  2>rosody — The  junglems 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

— JongUresses,  &c. — Singularity  of  the  chansons — Their  charm 
— Peculiarity  of  the  geste  system— Instances — Summary  of  the 
geste  of  William  of  Orauge — And  first  of  the  Couronnemcnt 
Loys — Comments  on  the  Couronnevient — William  of  Orange — 
The  earlier  poems  of  the  cycle — The  Charroi  de  Nlmes — The 
Prise  d'Orange — The  story  of  Vivien — Aliscans — The  end  of 
the  story — Renouart— Some  other  chansons — Final  remarks 
on  them    ........        22 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE   MATTER   OF   BRITAIN. 

Attractions  of  the  Arthurian  Legend — Discussions  on  their  sources 
— The  personality  of  Arthur — The  four  witnesses — Their  testi- 
mony— The  version  of  Geoffrey — Its  lacunae — How  the  Legend 
grew — Wace — Layamou — The  Eomances  proper — Walter  Map 
— Robert  de  Borron  —  Chrestien  de  Troyes  —  Prose  or  verse 
first? — A  Latin  Graal-book — The  Mabinogion — The  Legend 
itself — The  story  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea — Merlin — Lancelot 
— The  Legend  becomes  dramatic — Stories  of  Gawain  and  other 
knights — Sir  Tristram — His  story  almost  certainly  Celtic — Sir 
Lancelot — The  minor  knights — Arthuj- — Guinevere — The  Graal 
—How  it  perfects  the  story — Nature  of  this  perfection — No 
sequel  possible — Latin  episodes — The  Legend  as  a  whole — The 
theories  of  its  origin — Celtic — French — English — Literary — 
The  Celtic  theory — The  French  claims — The  theory  of  general 
literary  growth — The  English  or  Anglo-Norman  pretensions — 
Attemi^ted  hypothesis      ...... 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ANTIQUITY    IN    ROMANCE. 

Oddity  of  the  Classical  Romance — Its  importance — The  Troy  story 
— The  Alexandreid — Callisthenes — Latin  versions — Their  story 
— Its  developments — Alberic  of  Besan9on — The  decasyllabic 
poem — The  great  Roman  d'Alixandre — Form,  &c. — Continua- 


CONTENTS.  XV 

tions — King  Alexander — Characteristics — The  Tale  of  Troy — 
Dictys  and  Dares— The  Dares  story — Its  absurdity — Its  capa- 
bilities—  Troilus  and  Briseida — The  Human  de  Troie— The 
phases  of  Cressid  —  The  Ilistoria  Trojana  —  Meaning  of  the 
classical  romance  ......       148 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE   MAKING    OF   ENGLISH   AND   THE   SETTLEMENT   OF 
EUROPEAN   PROSODY. 

Special  interest  of  Early  Middle  English — Decay  of  Anglo-Saxon — 
Early  Middle  English  Literature — Scantine.ss  of  its  constituents 
—  Layamon  —  The  form  of  the  Brut  —  Its  substance — -Tlie 
Ormulum :  Its  metre,  its  spelling — The  Ancren  Riwle — The 
Owl  and  Vie  Xightingale — Proverbs — Robert  of  Gloucester  — 
Romances— i?««eZo^  the  Dane — King  Horn — Tlie  prosody  of 
the  modern  languages  —  Historical  retro.si3ect  —  Anglo-Saxon 
prosody  —  Romance  prosody  —  English  jirosody  —  The  later 
alliteration — The  new  verse — Rhyme  and  syllabic  equivalence 
— Accent  and  quantity  —  The  gain  of  form  —  The  "accent" 
theory — Initial  fallacies,  and  final  perversities  thereof .  .      187 


CHAPTER    VI. 

MIDDLE   HIGH    GERMAN    POETRY. 

Position  of  Germany — Merit  of  its  poetry — Folk-epics :  The  Nibel- 
ungenlied — The  Volsunga  saga — The  German  version — Metres 
— Rhyme  and  language — Kudruii — Shorter  national  epics — 
Literary  poetry  —  Its  four  chief  masters  —  Excellence,  both 
natural  and  acquired,  of  German  verse  —  Originality  of  its 
adaptation — The  Pioneers  :  Heinrich  von  Veldeke — Gottfried 
of  Strasburg — Hartmann  von  Aue — Erec  der  Wandercere  and 
/we in  —  Lyrics  —  The  "booklets "  —  Der  A rme  Heinrich  — 
"Wolfram  von  Eschenbach — Titurel —  Willehalm — Parzival — 
Walther  von  der  Vogelweide — Personality  of  the  poets — The 
Minnesingers  generally    ......      225 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    VII. 

THE   '  FOX,'    THE    '  ROSE,'   AND   THE    MINOR    CONTRIBUTIONS 
OF   FRANCE. 

The  predomiuaiice  of  France— The  rise  of  Allegory — Lyric— The 
Romance  aud  the  Pastourelle — The  Fabliaux — Their  origin — 
Their  licence — Their  wit — Definition  and  siibjects — Effect  of 
the  fabliaux  on  language — Aud  on  narrative — Conditions  of 
/aiZ2ct«(-\vritiug — The  appearance  of  irony — Fables  proper — 
Reynard  the  Fox  —  Order  of  texts  —  Place  of  origin  —  The 
French  form — Its  complications — Unity  of  spirit — The  Rise 
of  Allegory — The  satire  of  Renart^The,  Fox  himself — His 
circle — The  burial  of  Renart— The  Romance  of  the  Rose — 
William  of  Lorris  and  Jean  de  Meung — The  first  part — Its 
capital  value— The  rose-garden  —  "Danger" — "Reason"  — 
"Shame"  and  "Scandal"  —  The  later  poem — "False-Seem- 
ing"— Contrast  of  the  parts — Value  of  both,  and  charm  of  the 
first — Marie  de  France  and  Rutebceuf — Drama — Adam  de  la 
Halle — Robin  et  Ma^-ion—TheJeude  la  Feuillie — Comj)arison 
of  them — Early  French  prose — Laws  and  sermons— Villehar- 
douiu  —  William  of  Tyre  —  Joinville  —  Fiction  —  Aucassin  et 
Nicolette  ........       265 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

ICELANDIC  AND  PROVENCAL. 

Resemblances — Contrasts — Icelandic  literature  of  this  time  mainly 
prose — Ditticulties  with  it — The  Saga — Its  insularity  of  manner 
— Of  scenery  and  character — Fact  and  fiction  in  the  sagas — 
Classes  and  authorship  of  them  —  The  five  greater  sagas  — 
Njala — Laxdaila — Eyrbyggja — Egla — Qrettla — Its  critics — 
Merits  of  it — The  parting  of  Asdis  and  her  sons — Great  pas- 
sages of  the  sagas — Style— Proven9al  mainly  lyric — Origin  of 
this  lyric — Forms — Many  men,  one  mind — Example  of  rhyme- 
schemes  —  Provencal  poetry  not  great  —  But  extraordinarily 
pedagogic  —  Though  not  directly  on  English  —  Some  trouba- 
doiirs — Criticism  of  Provencal    .....      333 


CONTENTS.  XVll 

CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  PENINSULAS. 

Limitations  of  this  chapter — Late  Greek  romance — Its  difficulties 
as  a  subject^ Anna  Conmena,  &c. — Hysminias  and  Hysmine 
— Its  style — Its  story — Its  handling — Its  "decadence" — Late- 
ness of  Italian  —  The  "Saracen"  theory  —  The  "folk-song" 
theory — Ciullo  d'Alcanio — Heavy  debt  to  France— Yet  form 
and  spirit  both  original  —  Love-lyric  in  different  European 
countries — Position  of  Spanish — Catalan-Provencal— Galician- 
Portuguese  —  Castiliau  —  Ballads?  —  The  Poema  del  Cid — -A 
Spanish  chanson  de  geste — In  scheme  and  spirit — Difficiilties 
of  its  prosody — Ballad-metre  theory — Irregidarity  of  line — 
Other  poems  —  Apollonius  and  Mary  of  E.gypt  —  Berceo — 
Alfonso  el  Sabio  ......       375 

CHAPTER    X. 

CONCLUSION     ........       412 

INDEX   .........       427 


THE  FLOUEISHING  OF  ROMANCE 


RISE  OF  ALLEGORY 


CHAPTEE    I. 

THE   FUNCTION   OF   LATIN, 

REASONS  FOR  NOT  NOTICING  THE  BULK   OP  MEDIEVAL  LATIN  LITERATURE 

EXCEPTED     DIVISIONS — COMIC    LATIN    LITERATURE EXAMPLES    OV 

ITS    VERBAL    INFLUENCE — THE  VALUE   OP   BURLESQUE HYMNS — THE 

"dies   IR^" THE    RHYTHM    OF    BERNARD  — LITERARY    PERFECTION 

OF     THE      HYMNS SCHOLASTIC     PHILOSOPHY — -ITS     INFLUENCE     ON 

PHRASE   AND   METHOD — THE   GREAT   SCHOLASTICS. 

This  series  is  intended  to  survey  and  illustrate  the 
development  of  the  vernacular  literatures  of  mediaeval 
Rmsonsfor  ^^^  modem  Europe ;  and  for  that  purpose 
,wt  noticing  it  is  unuecessary  to  busy  ourselves  with 
medieval  Latin  more  than  a  part  of  the  Latin  writing 
literature.  which,  in  a  Steadily  decreasing  but — until 
the  end  of  the  last  century — an  always  considerable 
proportion,  served  as  the  vehicle  of  literary  expression, 

A 


2  EUKOPEAN    IJTEltATUKE,    1100-1300. 

But  with  a  part  of  it  we  are  as  necessarily  concerned 
as  we  are  necessarily  compelled  to  decline  the  whole. 
For  not  only  was  Latin  for  centuries  the  universal 
means  of  communication  between  educated  men  of 
different  languages,  the  medium  through  which  such 
men  received  their  education,  the  court-language,  so 
to  speak,  of  religion,  and  the  vehicle  of  all  the  litera- 
ture of  knowledge  which  did  not  directly  stoop  to  the 
comprehension  of  the  unlearned  ;  but  it  was  indirectly 
as  well  as  directly,  unconsciously  as  well  as  consci- 
ously, a  schoolmaster  to  bring  the  vernacular  lan- 
guages to  literary  accomplishment.  They  could  not 
have  helped  imitating  it,  if  they  would;  and  they 
did  not  think  of  avoiding  imitation  of  it,  if  they 
could.  It  modified,  to  a  very  large  extent,  their 
grammar;  it  influenced,  to  an  extent  almost  impos- 
sible to  overestimate,  the  prosody  of  their  finished 
literature ;  it  supplied  their  vocabulary ;  it  furnished 
models  for  all  their  first  conscious  literary  efforts  of 
the  more  deliberate  kind,  and  it  conditioned  those 
which  were  more  or  less  spontaneous. 

But,  even  if  we  had  room,  it  would  profit  us  little 
to  busy  ourselves  with  diplomatic  Latin  or  with  the 
Latin  of  chronicles,  with  the  Latin  of  such  scientific 
treatises  as  were  written  or  with  the  Latin  of  theology. 
All  these  except,  for  obvious  reasons,  the  first,  tended 
away  from  Latin  into  the  vernaculars  as  time  went  on, 
and  were  but  of  lesser  literary  moment,  even  while 
they  continued  to  be  written  in  Latin.  Nor  in  helles 
lettres  proper  were  such  serious  performances  as  con- 
tinued to  be  written  well  into  our  period  of  capital 


THE   FUNCTION    OF   LATIN.  6 

importance.  Such  a  book,  for  instance,  as  the  well- 
known  Trojan  War  of  Joseph  of  Exeter,^  though  it 
really  deserves  much  of  the  praise  which  it  used  to 
receive,-  can  never  be  anything  much  better  than  a 
large  prize  poem,  such  as  those  which  still  receive  and 
sometimes  deserve  the  medals  and  the  gift-books  of 
schools  and  universities.  Every  now  and  then  a  man 
of  irrepressible  literary  talent,  having  no  vernacular 
or  no  public  in  the  vernacular  ready  to  his  hand,  will 
write  in  Latin  a  book  like  the  De  Nugis  Ctcrialium,^ 
which  is  good  literature  though  bad  Latin.  But  on 
the  whole  it  is  a  fatal  law  of  such  things  that  the 
better  the  Latin  the  worse  must  the  literature  be. 

We  may,  however,  with  advantage  select  three  divi- 
sions  of   the  Latin   literature   of   our  section  of    the 

Excepted      Middle  Ages,  which  have  in  all  cases  no 

divisions,  gjjj^ii  literary  importance  and  interest,  and 
in  some  not  a  little  literary  achievement.  And  these 
are  the  comic  and  burlesque  Latin  writings,  especially 
in  verse ;  the  Hymns ;  and  the  great  body  of  philo- 
sophical writing  which  goes  by  the  general  title  of 
Scholastic  Pliilosophy,  and  which  was  at  its  palmiest 
time  in  the  later  portion  of  our  own  special  period. 

It  may  not  be  absolutely  obvious,  but  it  does  not 

Comic  Latin    Tcquire  mucli  thought  to  discover,  why  the 

literattm.      comic  and  burlesque  Latin  writing,  especially 

in  verse,  of  the  earlier  Middle  Ages  holds  such  a  posi- 

^  Included  with  Dictys  and  Dares  in  a  volume  of  Yalpy's  Delphin 
Classics. 

2  Cf.  Warton,  History  of  Enrjlish  Poetry.     Ed.  Hazlitt,  i.  226-292. 

*  Gualteri  Mapes,  De  Nugis  Curialium  Distinctiones  Quinquc.  Ed. 
T.  Wright :  Camden  Society,  1850. 


4  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

tiou.  But  if  we  compare  such  things  as  the  Carmina 
Burana,  or  as  the  Goliardic  poems  attributed  to  or 
connected  with  Walter  IMap,^  with  the  early  fabliaux, 
we  shall  perceive  that  while  the  latter,  excellently- 
written  as  they  sometimes  are,  depend  for  their  comedy 
chiefly  on  matter  and  incident,  not  indulging  much  in 
play  on  words  or  subtle  adjustment  of  phrase  and 
cadence,  the  reverse  is  the  case  with  the  former.  A 
language  must  have  reached  some  considerable  pitch 
of  development,  must  have  been  used  for  a  great  length 
of  time  seriously,  and  on  a  large  variety  of  serious  sub- 
jects, before  it  is  possible  for  anything  short  of  supreme 
genius  to  use  it  well  for  comic  purposes.  Much  indeed 
of  this  comic  use  turns  on  the  existence  and  degrada- 
tion of  recognised  serious  writing.  There  was  little  or 
no  opportunity  for  any  such  use  or  misuse  in  the 
infant  vernaculars ;  there  was  abundant  opportunity 
in  literary  Latin.  Accordingly  we  find,  and  should 
expect  to  find,  very  early  parodies  of  the  offices  and 
documents  of  the  Church, — things  not  unnaturally 
shocking  to  piety,  but  not  perhaps  to  be  justly  set 
down  to  any  profane,  much  less  to  any  specifically 
blasphemous,  intention.  When  the  quarrel  arose 
between  Eeformers  and  "  Papists,"  intentional  ribaldry 
no  doubt  began.  But  such  a  thing  as,  for  example,  the 
"  Missa  de  Potatoribus  "  ^  is  much  more  significant  of 
an  unquestioning  familiarity  than  of  deliberate  insult. 

1  Carmina  Buranu,  Stuttgart,  1847  ;  Political  Sonrjs  of  England 
(1839),  and  Latin  Poems  attribiUcd  to  Walter  Mapes  (1841),  both 
edited  for  the  Camden  Society  hj  T.  Wright. 

2  Wright  and  Halliwell's  Rcliquite  Antiques  (London,  1845),  ii.  208. 


THE   FUNCTION   OF   LATIN.  5 

It  is  an  instance  of  the  same  bent  of  the  human  mind 
which  has  made  very  learned  and  conscientious  lawyers 
burlesque  law,  and  which  induces  schoolboys  and 
undergraduates  to  parpdy  the  classics,  not  at  all  be- 
cause they  hate  them,  but  because  they  are  their  most 
familiar  literature. 

At  the  same  time  this  comic  degradation,  as  may  be 
seen  in  its  earliest  and  perhaps  its  greatest  practitioner 
Aristophanes — no  bad  citizen  or  innovating  misbeliever 
— leads  naturally  to  elaborate  and  ingenious  exercises 
in  style,  to  a  thorough  familiarity  with  the  capacities  of 
language,  metre,  rhyme.  And  expertness  in  all  these 
things,  acquired  in  the  Latin,  was  certain  sooner  or 
later  to  be  transferred  to  the  vernacular.  No  one  can 
read  the  Latin  poems  which  cluster  in  Germany  round 
the  name  of  the  "  Arch-Poet,"  ^  in  England  round  that 
of  Map,  without  seeing  how  much  freer  of  hand  is  the 
Latin  rhymer  in  comparison  with  him  who  finds  it 
"  hard  only  not  to  stumble  "  in  the  vernacular.  We 
feel  what  a  gusto  there  is  in  this  graceless  catachresis 
of  solemn  phrase  and  traditionally  serious  literature ; 
we  perceive  how  the  language,  colloquially  familiar, 
taught  from  infancy  in  the  schools,  provided  with 
plentiful  literary  examples,  and  having  already  re- 
ceived perfect  licence  of  accommodation  to  vernacular 
rhythms  and  the  poetical  ornaments  of  the  hour,  puts 
its  stammering  rivals,  fated  though  they  were  to  oust 
it,  out  of  court  for  the  time  by  its  audaciou.s  compound 
of  experience  and  experiment. 

^  On  this  Arch-Poet  see    Scherer,    History  of  German  Literature 
(Engl,  ed.,   Oxford,  1886),  i.  68. 


6  EUKOPEAN   LITERATUEE,    1100-1300. 

The  first  impression  of  any  one  who  reads  that  ex- 
ceedingly  delightfnl   volume    the    Camden   Society's 
Poems  attributed  to   Walter  Mapes  may  be 

Examples  of  its  ^       £       i  •    i     .  i 

verbal  influ-  onc  01  mcrc  amuscment,  or  which  there  are 
^^'  few  books  fuller.     The  agreeable  effrontery 

with  which  the  question  "  whether  to  kiss  Rose  or 
Agnes "  is  put  side  by  side  with  that  "  whether  it  is 
better  to  eat  flesh  cooked  in  the  cauldron  or  little 
fishes  driven  into  the  net ; "  the  intense  solemnity  and 
sorrow  for  self  with  which  Golias  discourses  in  trochaic 
mono-rhymed  laisses  of  irregular  length,  De  sito  In- 
fortunio;  the  galloping  dactylics  of  the  "Apocalypse"; 
the  concentrated  scandal  against  a  venerated  sex  of 
the  De  Conjuge  non  Ducenda,  are  jocund  enough  in 
themselves,  if  not  invariably  edifying.  But  the  good- 
for-nothing  who  wrote 

"  Fumus  et  mulier  et  stillicidia 
Expellunt  hominem  a  domo  propria," 

was  not  merely  cracking  jokes,  he  was  exercising  him- 
self, or  his  countrymen,  or  at  farthest  his  successors,  in 
the  use  of  the  vernacular  tongues  with  the  same  light- 
ness and  brightness.     When  he  insinuated  that 

"  Dulcis  erit  mihi  status 
Si  prebenda  muneratus, 

Reditu  vel  alio, 
Vivam,  licet  non  habunde, 
Saltern  naihi  detur  unde 
Studeam  de  proprio,"  — 

he  was  showing  how  things  could  be  put  slyly,  how 
the  stiffness  and  awkwardness  of  native  speech  could 
be    suppled    and    decorated,    how    the    innuendo,    the 


THE    FUNCTION    OF   LATIN.  7 

turn  of  words,  the  nuance,  could  be  imparted  to  dog- 
Latin.  And  if  to  dog -Latin,  why  not  to  genuine 
French,  or  English,  or  German  ? 

And  he  was  showing  at  the  same  time  how  to  make 
verse  flexible,  how  to  suit  rhythm  to  meaning,  how  to 
give  freedom,  elasticity,  swing.  No  doubt  this  had  in 
part  been  done  by  the  great  serious  poetry  to  which 
we  shall  come  presently,  and  which  he  and  his  kind 
The  value  of  oftcn  directly  burlcsqued.  But  in  the  very 
luriesque.  nature  of  things  comic  verse  must  supple 
language  to  a  degree  impossible,  or  very  seldom 
possible,  to  serious  poetry :  and  in  any  case  the  mere 
tricks  with  language  which  the  parodist  has  to  play, 
familiarise  him  with  the  use  of  it.  Even  in  these  days 
of  multifarious  writing,  it  is  not  absolutely  uncommon 
to  find  men  of  education  and  not  devoid  of  talent  who 
confess  that  they  have  no  notion  how  to  put  things, 
that  they  cannot  express  themselves.  We  can  see  this 
tying  of  the  tongue,  this  inability  to  use  words,  far 
more  reasonably  prevalent  in  the  infancy  of  the  vernac- 
ular tongues  ;  as,  for  instance,  in  the  constant  presence 
of  what  the  French  call  chcvilles,  expletive  phrases 
such  as  the  "  sikerly,"  and  the  "  I  will  not  lie,"  the 
"veraraent,"  and  the  "  everidel,"  which  brought  a  whole 
class  of  not  undeserving  work,  the  English  verse 
romances  of  a  later  time,  into  discredit.  Latin,  with  its 
wide  range  of  already  consecrated  expressions,  and 
with  the  practice  in  it  which  every  scholar  had,  made 
recourse  to  constantly  repeated  stock  phrases  at  least 
less  necessary,  if  necessary  at  all ;  and  the  writer's  set 
purpose  to  amuse  made  it  incumbent  on  him  not  to  be 


8  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,   1100-1300. 

tedious.  A  good  deal  of  this  comic  writing  may  be 
graceless :  some  of  it  may,  to  delicate  tastes,  he  shock- 
ing or  disgusting.  But  it  was  at  any  rate  an  obvious 
and  excellent  school  of  word-fence,  a  g^  nnasium  and 
exercising-ground  for  style. 

And  if  the  beneficial  effect  in  the  liteiary  sense  of 

these  light  songs  is  not  to  be  overlooked,  how  much 

greater  in  every  way  is  that  of  the  mag- 

Jlymns.  ^  ■  n         i   ■    t         ^ 

nificent  compositions  of  which  they  were 
in  some  cases  the  parody!  It  will  be  more  conven- 
ient to  postpone  to  a  later  chapter  of  this  volume 
consideration  of  tlie  exact  way  in  which  Latin  sacred 
poetry  affected  the  prosody  of  the  vernacular ;  but  it 
is  well  here  to  point  out  that  almost  all  the  finest 
and  most  famous  examples  of  the  mediaeval  hymn, 
with  perhaps  the  sole  exception  of  Veni,  Sancte 
SpiriiuH,  date  from  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies.^ Ours  are  the  stately  rhythms  of  Adam  of  St 
Victor,  and  the  softer  ones  of  St  Bernard  the  Greater. 
It  was  at  this  time  that  Jacopone  da  Todi,  in  the  in- 
tervals of  his  eccentric  vernacular  exercises,  was  in- 
spired to  write  the  Stahat  Mater,  From  this  time 
comes  that  glorious  descant  of  Bernard  of  Morlaix,  in 
which,  the  more  its  famous  and  very  elegant  Englisli 

'  A  few  more  precise  dates  may  be  useful.  St  Bernard,  1091-1153  ; 
Bernard  of  Morlaix,  exact  years  uncertain,  but  twelf  tli  century  ;  Adam 
of  St  Victor,  oh.  civ.  1190  ;  Jacopone  da  Todi,  oh.  1306  ;  St  Bonaven- 
tura,  1221-1274  ;  Thomas  of  Celano,/.  c.  1226.  The  two  great  store- 
houses of  Latin  hymn-texts  are  the  well-known  books  of  Daniel,  The- 
saurus Hymnologiciis,  and  Mone,  Hymni  Latim  Mcdii  JEvi.  And  on 
this,  as  on  all  matters  connected  with  hymns,  the  exhaustive  Dic- 
tionary of  Ilymnology  (London,  1892)  of  the  Rev.  .John  Julian  will  he 
found  UKjst  valuable. 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    LATIN.  9 

paraphrase  is  read  beside  it,  the  more  does  the  t^reat- 
ness  and  the  beauty  of  the  original  appear.  And  from 
this  time  comes  the  greatest  of  all  hymns,  and  one  of 
the  greatest  .yf  all  poems,  the  Dies  Irce,  There  have 
been  attempts — more  than  one  of  thein^ — to  make  out 
that  the  Dies  Irce  is  no  such  wonderful  thing  after  all : 
attempts  which  are,  perhaps,  the  extreme  examples  of 
that  cheap  and  despicable  paradox  which  thinks  to 
escape  the  charge  of  blind  docility  by  the  affectation 
ot  heterodox  independence.  The  judgment  of  the 
^eatest  (and  not  always  of  the  most  pious)  men  of 
letters  of  modern  times  may  confirm  those  who  are 
uncomfortable  without  authority  in  a  different  opin- 
ion. Fortunately  there  is  not  likely  ever  to  be  lack 
of  those  who,  authority  or  no  authority,  in  youth  and 
in  age,  after  much  reading  or  without  much,  in  all 
time  of  their  tribulation  and  in  all  time  of  their 
wealth,  will  hold  these  wonderful  triplets,  be  they 
Thomas  of  Celano's  or  another's,  as  nearly  or  quite 
the  most  perfect  wedding  of  sound  to  sense  that 
they  know. 

It  would  be  possible,  indeed,  to  illustrate  a  com- 
plete  dissertation   on   the   methods    of    expression   in 
serious  poetry  from  the  fifty-one  lines  of  the 

The  Dies  Ira;..  .  .  . 

Dies  Irm.  Ehyme,  alliteration,  cadence,  and 
adjustment  of  vowel  and  consonant  values, — all  these 
things  receive  perfect  expression  in  it,  or,  at  least,  in 
the  first  thirteen  stanzas,  for  the  last  four  are  a  little 
inferior.  It  is  quite  astonishing  to  reflect  upon  the 
careful  art  or  the  felicitous  accident  of  such  a  line  as 
"  Tuba  minnu  spargens  sonum,'' 


10  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

with  the  thud  of  the  trochee  ^  falling  in  each  instance 
in  a  different  vowel ;  and  still  more  on  the  continu- 
ous sequence  of  five  stanzas,  from  Judex  e7-go  to  non  sit 
cassus,  in  which  not  a  word  could  be  displaced  or  re- 
placed by  another  without  loss.  The  climax  of  verbal 
harmony,  corresponding  to  and  expressing  religious 
passion  and  religious  awe,  is  reached  in  the  last — 

"  Quserens  me  sedisti  lassus, 
Eedemisti  crucem  passus  : 
Tantus  labor  non  sit  cassus  ! " — 

where  the  sudden  change  from  the  dominant  e  sounds 
(except  in  the  rhyme  foot)  of  the  first  two  lines  to  the 
«'s  of  the  last  is  simply  miraculous,  and  miraculously 
assisted  by  what  may  be  called  the  internal  sub-rhyme 
of  sedisti  and  redemisti.  This  latter  effect  can  rarely 
be  attempted  without  a  jingle :  there  is  no  jingle  here, 
only  an  ineffable  melody.  After  the  Dies  Irce,  no  poet 
could  say  that  any  effect  of  poetry  was,  as  far  as  sound 
goes,  unattainable,  though  few  could  have  hoped  to 
equal  it,  and  perhaps  no  one  except  Dante  and  Shake- 
speare has  fully  done  so. 

Beside  the  grace  and  the  grandeur,  the  passion  and 
the  art,  of  this  wonderful  composition,  even  the  best  re- 
maining examples  of  mediasval  hymn-writing  may  look 
a  little  pale.  It  is  possible  for  criticism,  which  is  not 
hypercriticism,  to  object  to  the  pathos  of  the  Stabat, 
that  it  is  a  trifle  luscious,  to  find  fault  with  the  rhyme- 
scheme  of  Jcsu  dulcis  memoria,  that  it  is  a  little  faint 
and  frittered  ;  while,  of  course,  those  who  do  not  like 

^  Of  course  no  one  of  the  four  is  a  pure  classical  trochee  ;  but  all 
obey  the  trochaic  rhythm. 


THE   FUNCTION   OF   LATIN.  11 

conceits  and  far-fetched  interpretations  can  always 
quarrel  with  the  substance  of  Adam  of  St  Victor. 
But  those  wlio  care  for  merits  rather  than  for  de- 
fects will  never  be  weary  of  admiring  the  best  of 
these  liymns,  or  of  noticing  and,  as  far  as  possible, 
understanding  their  perfection.  Althougli  the  lan- 
guage they  use  is  old,  and  their  subjects  are  those 
which  very  competent  and  not  at  all  irreligious  cri- 
tics have  denounced  as  unfavourable  to  poetry,  the 
special  poetical  charm,  as  we  conceive  it  in  modern 
days,  is  not  merely  present  in  them,  but  is  present 
in  a  manner  of  which  few  traces  can  be  found  in 
classical  times.  And  some  such  students,  at  least, 
will  probably  go  on  to  examine  the  details  of  the 
hymn  -  writers'  method,  with  the  result  of  finding 
more  such  things  as  have  been  pointed  out  above. 

Let  us,  for  instance,  take  the  rhythm  of  Bernard 
the  Englishman  (as  he  was  really,  though  called  of 
The  rhythm  Morlaix).  "Jerusalem  the  Golden"  has 
of  Bernard,  made  somc  of  its  merits  common  pro- 
perty, while  its  practical  discoverer.  Archbishop 
Trench,  has  set  those  of  the  original  forth  with  a 
judicious  enthusiasm  which  cannot  be  bettered.^  The 
point  is,  how  these  merits,  these  effects,  are  produced. 
The  piece  is  a  crucial  one,  because,  grotesque  as 
its  arrangement  would  probably  have  seemed  to  an 

^  Sacred  Latin  Poetry  (2d  ed.,  London,  1864),  p.  304.  This  admir- 
able book  has  not  been,  and  from  its  mixture  of  taste  and  learning  is 
never  likely  to  be,  superseded  as  an  introduction  to,  and  chrestomatliy 
of,  the  subject.  Indeed,  if  a  little  touch  of  orthodox  prudery  had 
not  made  the  Archbishop  exclude  the  Stabat,  hardly  a  hymn  of  the 
very  first  class  could  be  said  to  be  missing  in  it. 


12  EUROPEAN    LTTERATUEE,    1100-1300. 

Augustan,  its  peculiarities  are  superadded  to,  not 
substituted  for,  the  requirements  of  classical  pros- 
ody. The  writer  does  not  avail  himself  of  the  new 
accentual  quantitication,  and  his  other  licences  are  but 
few.  If  we  examine  the  poem,  however,  we  shall 
find  that,  besides  the  abundant  use  of  rhyme  —  in- 
terior as  well  as  final — he  avails  himself  of  all  those 
artifices  of  what  may  be  called  word-music,  suggest- 
ing beauty  by  a  running  accompaniment  of  sound, 
which  are  the  main  secret  of  modern  verse.  He  is 
not  satisfied,  ample  as  it  may  seem,  with  his  double- 
rhyme  harmony.  He  confines  himself  to  it,  indeed, 
in  the  famous  overture-couplet — 

"  flora  novissima,  tempora  pessima  sunt,  vigilemus  ! 
Ecce  !  minaciter  imminet  arbiter  ille  supremus." 

liut  immediately  afterwards,  and  more  or  less  througli- 
out,  he  redoubles  and  redoubles  again  every  possible 
artifice — sound-repetition  in  the  imminet,  imviinet,  of 
the  third  line,  alliteration  in  the  recta  rcTnuneret  of  the 
fourth,  and  everywhere  trills  and  roulades,  not  limited 
to  the  actually  rhyming  syllables  of  the  same  vowel — 

"  Tunc  nova  gloria  pectora  sobria  clarificabit  .   .   . 
Candida  lilia,  viva  monilia,  sunt  tibi  Sponsa  .   .   . 
Te  peto,  te  colo,  te  flagro,  te  volo,  canto,  saluto." 

He  has  instinctively  discovered  the  necessity  of  vary- 
ing as  much  as  possible  the  cadence  and  composition 
of  the  last  third  of  his  verse,  and  carefully  avoids  any- 
thing like  a  monotonous  use  of  his  only  spondee ;  in 
a  batch  of  eighteen  lines  taken  at  random,  there  are 
only  six  end -words  of  two  syllables,  and  these  only 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    LATIN.  13 

once  rliyme  together.  The  consequence  of  these  and 
other  devices  is  that  the  whole  poem  is  accompanied 
by  a  sort  of  swirl  and  eddy  of  sound  and  cadence, 
constantly  varying,  constantly  shifting  its  centres  and 
systems,  but  always  assisting  the  sense  with  grateful 
clash  or  murmur,  according  as  it  is  loud  or  soft,  of 
word-music. 

The  vernacular  languages  were  not  as  yet  in  case  to 

produce  anything  so  complicated  as  this,  and  some  of 

them  have  never  been  quite  able  to  produce 

Literary  %icr-     _  _  _  •*- 

fectiono/the  it  to  this  day.  But  it  must  be  obvious  at 
ymns.  once  what  a  standard  was  held  up  before 
poets,  almost  every  one  of  whom,  even  if  he  had  but 
small  Latin  in  a  general  way,  heard  these  liymns  con- 
stantly sung,  and  what  means  of  producing  like  effects 
were  suggested  to  them.  The  most  varied  and  charm- 
ing lyric  of  the  Middle  Ages,  that  of  the  German 
Minnesingers,  shows  the  effect  of  this  Latin  practice 
side  by  side,  or  rather  inextricably  mingled,  with  the 
effects  of  the  preciser  French  and  Proven(j.al  verse- 
scheme,  and  the  still  looser  but  equally  musical,  though 
half-inarticulate,  suggestions  of  indigenous  song.  That 
English  prosody  —  the  prosody  of  Shakespeare  and 
Coleridge,  of  Shelley  and  Keats — owes  its  origin  to  a 
similar  admixture  the  present  writer  at  least  has  no 
doubt  at  all,  while  even  those  who  deny  this  can  hardly 
deny  the  positive  literary  achievement  of  the  best 
mediaeval  hymns.  They  stand  by  themselves.  Latin 
— which,  despite  its  constant  colloquial  life,  still  even 
in  the  Middle  Ages  had  in  profane  use  many  of  the 
drawbacks  of  a  dead  language,  being  either  slipshod  or 


14  EUROPEAN   LITERATUKE,    1100-1300. 

stiff,- — liere,  owing  to  the  milleuniuni  and  more  during 
which  it  had  heen  throughout  Western  Europe  the 
living  language  and  the  sole  living  language  of  the 
Church  Universal,  shakes  off  at  once  all  artiticial  and 
all  doggerel  character.  It  is  thoroughly  alive :  it 
conies  from  the  writers'  hearts  as  easily  as  from  their 
pens.  They  have  in  the  fullest  sense  proved  it ;  they 
know  exactly  what  they  can  do,  and  in  this  particular 
sphere  there  is  hardly  anything  that  they  cannot  do. 

The  far-famed  and  almost  more  abused  than  famed 
Scholastic  Philosophy  ^  cannot  be  said  to  have  added 
schoiastK  to  positive  literature  any  such  masterpieces 
Philosophy,  jj-^  pi-ose  as  the  hymn-writers  (who  were 
very  commonly  themselves  Scholastics)  produced  in 
verse.  With  the  exception  of  Abelard,  whose  interest 
is  rather  biographical  than  strictly  literary,  and  per- 
haps Anselm,  the  heroes  of  medieval  dialectic,  the 
Doctors  Subtle  and  Invincible,  Irrefragal:)le  and  An- 
gelic, have  left  nothing  which  even  on  the  widest 
interpretation  of  pure  literature  can  be  included  within 
it,  or  even  any  names  that  figure  in  any  but  the  least 

^  I  should  feel  even  more  diffidence  than  I  do  feel  in  approaching 
this  proverbially  thorny  subject  if  it  were  not  that  many  years  ago, 
before  I  was  called  off  to  other  matters,  I  paid  considerable  attention 
to  it.  And  I  am  informed  by  experts  that  though  the  later  (chiefly 
German)  Histories  of  Philosophj",  by  Ueberweg,  Erdmanu,  Wiudel- 
band,  &c.,  may  be  consulted  with  advantage,  and  though  some  mono- 
graphs may  be  added,  there  are  still  no  better  guides  than  Haurdau, 
Dc  la  Philosophic  Scolastique  (revised  edition)  and  Prantl,  Gcschichte 
dcr  Locjik  im  Ahendlandc,  who  were  our  masters  five -and -twenty 
years  ago.  The  last-named  book  in  especial  may  be  recommended 
with  absolute  confidence  to  any  one  who  experiences  the  famous 
desire  for  "something  craggy  to  break  his  mind  upon." 


THE   FUNCTION    OF    LATIN.  15 

select  of  literary  histories.  Yet  they  cannot  but 
receive  some  notice  here  in  a  history,  however  con- 
densed, of  the  literature  of  the  period  of  tlieir  chief 
flourishing.  This  is  not  because  of  their  philosophical 
importance,  although  at  last,  after  much  bandying  of 
not  always  well-informed  argument,  that  importance 
is  pretty  generally  allowed  by  the  competent.  It  has, 
fortunately,  ceased  to  be  fashionable  to  regard  the  dis- 
pute about  Universals  as  proper  only  to  amuse  childhood 
or  beguile  dotage,  and  the  quarrels  of  Scotists  and 
Thomists  as  mere  reductions  of  barren  logomachy  to 
the  flatly  absurd.  Still,  this  importance,  though  real, 
though  great,  is  not  directly  literary.  The  claim  which 
makes  it  impossible  to  pass  them  over  here  is  that 
excellently  put  in  the  two  passages  from  Condorcet 
and  Hamilton  which  John  Stuart  INIill  (not  often  a 
scholastically  minded  philosopher)  set  in  the  fore- 
front of  his  Logic,  that,  in  the  Scottish  philosopher's 
words,  "it  is  to  the  schoolmen  that  the  vulgar  lan- 
guages are  indebted  for  what  precision  and  analytical 
subtlety  they  possess ; "  and  that,  as  the  Frenchman, 
going  still  further,  but  hardly  exaggerating,  lays  it  down, 
"  logic,  ethics,  and  metaphysics  itself  owe  to  Scholas- 
ticism a  precision  unknown  to  the  ancients  them- 
selves." 

There  can  be  no  reasonable  or  well-informed  denial 

of  the  fact  of  this :  and  the  reason  of  it  is  not  hard  to 

understand.    That  constant  usage,  the  effect 

Its  influence  ,  . 

o>n)hraseaiLd  of  whicli  lias  bccu  uotcd  in  theological  verse, 
had  the  same  effect  in  philosophico- theo- 
logical prose.     Latin  is  before  all  things  a  precise  Ian- 


16  EUROPEAN   LITKllATUEE,    1100-1300. 

"iiaoe,  and  the  one  qualification  which  it  lacked  in 
classical  times  for  philosophic  use,  the  prc^sence  of  a 
full  and  exact  terminology,  was  supplied  in  the  Middle 
Ages  by  the  fearless  barbarism  (as  pedants  call  it)  which 
made  it  possible  and  easy  first  to  fashion  such  words 
as  ascitas  and  quodlibetalis,  and  then,  after,  as  it  were, 
lodging  a  specification  of  their  meaning,  to  use  them 
ever  afterwards  as  current  coin.  All  the  peculiarities 
which  ignorance  or  sciolism  used  to  ridicule  or  reproach 
in  the  Scholastics — their  wiredrawnness,  their  linger- 
ing over  special  points  of  verbal  wrangling,  their 
neglect  of  plain  fact  in  comparison  with  endless  and 
unbridled  dialectic — all  these  things  did  no  harm  but 
much  positive  good  from  the  point  of  view  which  we 
are  now  taking.  When  a  man  defended  theses  against 
lynx-eyed  opponents  or  expounded  them  before  perhaps 
more  lynx-eyed  pupils,  according  to  rules  familiar  to 
all,  it  was  necessary  for  him,  if  he  were  to  avoid  certain 
and  immediate  discomfiture,  to  be  precise  in  his  terms 
and  exact  in  his  use  of  them.  That  it  was  possible  to 
be  childishly  as  well  as  barbarously  scholastic  nobody 
would  deny,  and  the  famous  sarcasms  of  the  Epistolm 
Ohscurorum  Virorum,  two  centuries  after  our  time,  had 
been  anticipated  long  before  by  satirists.  But  even  the 
logical  fribble,  even  the  logical  jargonist,  was  bound  to 
be  exact.  Now  exactness  was  the  very  thing  which 
languages,  mostly  young  in  actual  age,  and  in  all  cases 
what  we  may  call  uneducated,  unpractised  in  literary 
exercises,  wanted  most  of  all.  And  it  was  impossible 
that  they  sliould  have  better  teachers  in  it  than  the 
few   famous,  and   even  than   most    of    the    numerous 


THE   FUNCTION   OF   LATIN.  17 

imknown    or    almost    unknown,    philosophers    of    the 
Scholastic  period. 

It  has  been  said  that  of  those  most  famous  almost 
all  belong  specially  to  this  our  period.  Before  it  there 
The  great  IS,  till  its  vcry  latcst  eve,  hardly  one  ex- 
schoiastics.  QQ^^  John  Scotus  Eiigcua ;  after  it  none, 
except  Occam,  of  the  very  greatest.  But  during  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  there  is  scarcely  a 
decade  without  its  illustration.  The  first  champions 
of  the  great  Eealist  and  Nominalist  controversy, 
Eoscellinus  and  William  of  Champeaux,  belong  to  the 
eleventh  century  in  part,  as  does  their  still  more 
famous  follower,  Abelard,  by  the  first  twenty  years 
of  his  life,  while  almost  the  whole  of  that  of  Anselm 
may  be  claimed  by  it.^  But  it  was  not  till  the  ex- 
treme end  of  that  century  that  the  great  controversy 
in  which  these  men  were  the  front -fighters  became 
active  (the  date  of  the  Council  of  Soissons,  which  con- 
demned the  JSTominalism  of  Eoscellinus  as  tritheistic 
is  1092),  and  the  controversy  itself  was  at  its  hottest 
in  the  earlier  part  of  the  succeeding  age.  The  Master 
of  the  Sentences,  Peter  Lombard,  belongs  wholly  to  the 
twelfth,  and  the  book  which  gives  him  his  scholastic 
title  dates  from  its  very  middle.     John  of  Salisbury, 

^  Some  exacter  dates  may  be  useful.  Anselm,  1033-1109  ;  Ros- 
celliu,  1050?-112o  ;  William  of  Champeaux,  ?-1121  ;  Abelard,  1079- 
1142  ;  Peter  Lombard,  oh.  1164  ;  John  of  Salisbury,  ?-1180  ;  Alex- 
ander of  Hales,  M245  ;  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  ?-1265  ?  ;  Bonaventura, 
1221-1274;  Albertus  Magnus,  1195-1280;  Thomas  Aquinas,  1225  ?- 
1274 ;  Duns  Scotus,  1270  ?-1308  ?  ;  William  of  Occam,  ?-1347  ;  Roger 
Bacon,  1214-1292;  Petrus  Hispanus,  M277;  Raymond  Lully,  1235- 
1315. 

B 


18  EUEOPEAN    LITEKATUEE,    1100-1300. 

one  of  the  clearest-headed  as  well  as  most  scholarly  of 
the  whole  body,  died  in  1180.  The  fuller  knowledge 
of  Aristotle,  through  the  Arabian  writers,  coincided 
with  the  latter  part  of  the  twelftli  century :  and  the 
curious  outburst  of  Pantheism  which  connects  itself  on 
the  one  hand  with  the  little-known  teaching  of  Amaury 
de  Bene  and  David  of  Dinant,  on  the  other  with  the 
almost  legendary  "Eternal  Gospel"  of  Joachim  of 
Flora,  occurred  almost  exactly  at  the  junction  of  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth.  As  for  the  writers  of  the 
thirteenth  century  itself,  that  great  period  holds  in  this 
as  in  other  departments  the  position  of  palmiest  time 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  To  it  belong  Alexander  Hales, 
who  disputes  with  Aquinas  the  prize  for  the  best  ex- 
ample of  the  Summa  Theologise ;  Bonaventura,  the 
mystic ;  Boger  Bacon,  the  natural  philosopher ;  Vin- 
cent of  Beauvais,  the  encyclopedist.  If,  of  the  four 
greatest  of  all,  Albert  of  Bolstadt,  Albertus  ]\Iagnus, 
the  "Dumb  Ox  of  Cologne,"  was  born  seven  years 
before  its  opening,  his  life  lasted  over  four-fifths  of 
it ;  that  of  Aquinas  covered  its  second  and  third  quar- 
ters ;  Occam  himself,  though  his  main  exertions  lie 
beyond  us,  was  probably  born  before  Aquinas  died ; 
while  John  Duns  Scotus  hardly  outlived  the  century's 
close  by  a  decade.  Eaymond  Lully  (one  of  the 
most  characteristic  figures  of  Scholasticism  and  of  the 
mediaeval  period,  with  his  "  Great  Art "  of  automatic 
philosophy),  who  died  in  1315,  was  born  as  early  as 
1235.  Peter  the  Spaniard,  Pope  and  author  of  the 
Summulm  Logicales,  the  grammar  of  formal  logic  for 
ages,  died  in  1277. 


THE   FUNCTION   OF   LATIN.  19 

Of  the  matter  which  these  and  others  l)y  hundreds 
put  in  forgotten  wealth  of  exposition,  no  account  will 
be  expected  here.  Even  yet  it  is  comparatively  unex- 
plored, or  else  the  results  of  the  exploration  exist  only 
in  books  brilliant,  but  necessarily  summary,  like  that  of 
Haureau,  in  books  thorough,  but  almost  as  formidable 
as  the  original,  like  that  of  Prantl.  Even  the  latest 
historians  of  philosophy  complain  tnat  there  is  up  to 
the  present  day  no  "ingoing"  (as  the  Germans  say) 
monograph  about  Scotus  and  none  about  Occam.^  The 
whole  works  of  the  latter  have  never  been  collected  at 
all:  the  twelve  mighty  volumes  which  represent  the 
compositions  of  the  former  contain  probably  not  the 
whole  work  of  a  man  who  died  before  he  was  forty. 
The  greater  part  of  the  enormous  mass  of  writing  which 
was  produced,  from  Scotus  Erigena  in  the  ninth  century 
to  Gabriel  Biel  in  the  fifteenth,  is  only  accessible  to 
persons  with  ample  leisure  and  living  close  to  large 
and  ancient  libraries.  Except  Erigena  himself,  Anselm 
in  a  few  of  his  works,  Abelard,  and  a  part  of  Aquinas, 
hardly  anything  can  be  found  in  modern  editions,  and 
even  tlie  zealous  efforts  of  the  present  Pope  have  been 
less  effectual  in  divulging  Aquinas  than  those  of  his 
predecessors  were  in  making  Amaury  of  Bena  a  mys- 

'  Kcmusat  on  Anselm  and  Cousin  on  Abelard  long  ago  smoothed  the 
way  as  far  as  these  two  masters  are  concerned,  and  Dean  Church  on 
Anselm  is  also  something  of  a  classic.  But  I  know  no  otlier  recent 
monograph  of  any  importance  by  an  Englishman  on  Scholasticism 
except  ]\Ir  R.  L.  Poole's  Erigena.  Indeed  the  "  Erin-born  "  has  not 
had  the  ill-luck  of  his  country,  for  with  the  Migne  edition  accessible 
to  everybody,  he  is  in  much  better  case  than  most  of  his  followers 
two,  three,  and  four  centuries  later. 


20  EUROPEAN   LITEIIATUKE,    llUO-1300. 

tery.^  Yet  tliere  has  always,  in  generous  souls  wlio  have 
some  tincture  of  pliilosophy,  subsisted  a  curious  kind  of 
sympatliy  and  yearning  over  the  work  of  these  gener- 
ations of  mainly  disinterested  scholars  who,  whatever 
they  were,  were  tliorough,  and  whatever  they  could  not 
do,  could  think.  And  there  have  even,  in  these  latter 
days,  been  some  graceless  ones  who  have  asked  whether 
the  Science  of  the  nineteenth  century,  after  an  equal 
interval,  will  be  of  any  more  positive  value — whether 
it  will  not  have  even  less  comparative  interest  than 
that  which  appertains  to  the  Scholasticism  of  the 
thirteenth. 

However  this  may  be,  the  claim,  modest  and  even 
meagre  as  it  may  seem  to  some,  which  has  been  here 
once  more  put  forward  for  this  Scholasticism — the  claim 
of  a  far-reaching  educative  influence  in  mere  language, 
in  mere  system  of  arrangement  and  expression,  will 
remain  valid.  If,  at  the  outset  of  the  career  of  modern 
languages,  men  had  thought  with  the  looseness  of  mod- 
ern thought,  had  indulged  in  the  haphazard  slovenli- 
ness of  modern  logic,  had  popularised  theology  and 
vulgarised  rhetoric,  as  we  have  seen  both  popularised 
and  vulgarised  since,  we  should  indeed  have  been  in 
evil  case.  It  used  to  be  thought  clever  to  moralise  and 
to  felicitate  mankind  over  the  rejection  of  the  stays,  the 
fetters,  the  prison  in  which  its  thought  was  mediaevally 
kept.     The  justice  or  the  injustice,  the  taste  or  the 

^  The  Amalricans,  as  the  followers  of  Amaury  de  Bene  were  termed, 
were  not  only  condemned  by  the  Lateran  Council  of  1215,  but  sharply 
persecuted ;  and  we  know  nothing  of  the  doctrines  of  Amaury,  David 
and  the  other  northern  Averroists  or  Pantheists,  except  from  later 
and  hostile  notices. 


THE   FUNCTION   OF   LATIN.  21 

vulgarity,  of  these  moralisings,  of  these  felicitations,  may 
not  concern  us  here.  But  in  expression,  as  distin- 
guished from  thought,  the  value  of  the  discipline  to 
which  these  youthful  languages  were  suhjected  is  not 
likely  now  to  be  denied  by  any  scholar  who  has  paid 
attention  to  the  subject.  It  would  have  been  perhaps 
a  pity  if  thought  had  not  gone  through  other  phases ; 
it  woidd  certainly  have  been  a  pity  if  the  tongues  had 
all  been  subjected  to  the  fullest  influence  of  Latin  con- 
straint. But  that  the  more  lawless  of  them  benefited 
by  that  constraint  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever. 
The  influence  of  form  which  the  best  Latin  hymns  of 
the  Middle  Ages  exercised  in  poetry,  the  influence  in 
vocabulary  and  in  logical  arrangement  which  Scholas- 
ticism exercised  in  prose,  are  beyond  dispute  :  and  even 
those  who  will  not  pardon  literature,  whatever  its 
historical  and  educating  importance  be,  for  being  some- 
thing less  than  masterly  in  itself,  will  find  it  difficult 
to  maintain  the  exclusion  of  the  Cur  Deus  Homo,  and 
impossible  to  refuse  admission  to  the  Dirs  Ircc. 


22 


CHAPTEE   II. 

CHANSONS    DE    GESTE.^ 

EUROPEAN   LITERATURE   IN    1100 — LATE    DISCOVERT   OF    THE    "  CHANSONS  " 

THEIR    AGE    AND    HISTORY THEIR    DISTINGUISHING    CHARACTER — 

MISTAKES    ABOUT     THEM THEIR    ISOLATION    AND    ORIGIN THEIR 

METRICAL   FORM — THEIR   SCHEME    OF    MATTER THE    CHARACTER    OF 

CHARLEMAGNE  —  OTHER      CHARACTERS      AND       CHARACTERISTICS  

REALIST     QUALITY VOLUME     AND     AGE     OF     THE     "  CHANSONS  "  — 

TWELFTH     CENTURY THIRTEENTH     CENTURY FOURTEENTH,     AND 

LATER — "chansons"   IN    PRINT LANGUAGE:    '"  OC  "    AND    "  OIL  " 

ITALIAN  —  DIFFUSION    OF    THE     "  CHANSONS  " THEIR    AUTHORSHIP 

AND    PUBLICATION — THEIR  PERFORMANCE — HEARING,    NOT    READING, 
TITE    OBJECT — EFFECT    ON     PROSODY — THE     "  JONGLEURS  " — "  JONG- 

LERESSES,"      ETC. SINGULARITY      OP     THE      "  CHANSONS  " THEIR 

CHARM PECULIARITY     OF     THE    "  GESTE  "    SYSTEM INSTANCES 

SUMMARY    OF    THE    "  GESTE "    OF    WILLIAM    OF    ORANGE AND    FIRST 

OF   THE    "  COURONNEMENT    LOYS  " — COMMENTS  ON   THE   "  COURONNE- 
MENT  " — WILLIAM  OF  ORANGE — THE   EARLIER  POEMS   OF  THE  CYCLE 

THE     "CHARROI     DE     nImES  " THE    "  PRISE     d'ORANGE  " THE 

STORY    OF   VIVIEN — "aLISCANs" — THE  END  OP  THE   STORY RENOU- 

ART — some   other    "  CHANSONS  " — FINAL   REMARKS    ON   THEM. 

When  we  turn  from  Latin  and  consider  the  condition 
of  the  vernacular  tongues  in  the  year  1100,  there  is 

^  I  prefer,  as  more  logical,  the  plural  form  chansons  de  gestes,  aud 
have  so  written  it  in  my  Short  History  of  French  Literature  (Oxford, 
4th  ed.,  1892),  to  which  I  may  not  improperly  refer  the  reader  on 


CHANSONS   I)E    GESTE.  23 

hardly  more  than  one  country  in  Europe  where  we 
find  them  producing  anything  that  can  be  called 
European  lit-  Htcrature.  In  England  Anglo  -  Saxon,  if 
erauireiiiuoo.  ^^q^  exactly  dead,  is  dying,  and  has  for 
more  than  a  century  ceased  to  produce  anything  of 
distinctly  literary  attraction ;  and  English,  even  the 
earliest  "  middle "  English,  is  scarcely  yet  born,  is 
certainly  far  from  being  in  a  condition  for  literary 
use.  The  last  echoes  of  the  older  and  more  original 
Icelandic  poetry  are  dying  away,  and  the  great  pro- 
duct of  Icelandic  prose,  the  Saga,  still  volitat  per  ora 
vmtm,  without  taking  a  concrete  literary  form.  It  is 
in  the  highest  degree  uncertain  whether  anything 
properly  to  be  called  Spanish  or  Italian  exists  at  all 
— anything  but  dialects  of  tlie  lingua  rustica  showing 
traces  of  what  Spanish  and  Italian  are  to  be ;  though 
the  originals  of  the  great  Pocma  del  Cicl  cannot  be  far 
off.     German  is  in  something  the  same  trance  between 


the  general  subject.  But  of  late  years  the  fashion  of  dropping  the 
s  has  prevailed,  and,  therefore,  in  a  book  meant  for  general  reading, 
I  follow  it  here.  Those  who  prefer  native  authorities  will  find  a 
recent  and  excellent  one  on  the  whole  subject  of  French  literature 
in  M.  Lanson,  Histoire  de  la  Littirature  Frangaise,  Paris,  1895.  For 
the  mediicval  period  generally  M.  Gaston  Paris,  La  LitUrature  Fran- 
(;aise  au  Moyen  Age  (Paris,  1888),  speaks  with  unapproached  com- 
petence ;  and,  still  narrowing  the  range,  the  subject  of  the  present 
chapter  has  been  dealt  with  by  M.  Leon  Gautier,  Lcs  Epopees  Fran- 
daises  (Paris,  4  vols.,  1878-92),  in  a  manner  equally  learned  and 
loving.  M.  Gautier  has  also  been  intrusted  with  the  section  on  the 
Chansons  in  the  new  and  sjjlendidl}'  illustrated  collection  of  mono- 
graphs (Paris :  Colin)  which  M.  Petit  de  JuUeville  is  editing  under 
the  title  Histoire  de  la  Langue  et  de  la  LitUrature  Fraru^aise.  Mr 
Paget  Toynbee's  Specimens  of  Old  French  (Oxford,  1892)  will  illus- 
trate this  and  the  following  chapters. 


24  EUKOPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

its  "  Old  "  and  its  "  Middle  "  state  as  is  English.  Only 
in  France,  and  in  both  the  great  divisions  of  French 
speech,  is  vernacular  literature  active.  The  northern 
tongue,  the  langue  d'o'il,  shows  us — in  actually  known 
existence,  or  by  reasonable  inference  that  it  existed 
— the  national  epic  or  chanson  de  gestc  ;  the  southern, 
or  langue  d'oc,  gives  us  the  Provencal  lyric.  The 
latter  will  receive  treatment  later,  the  former  must 
be  dealt  with  at  once. 

It  is  rather  curious  that  while  the  chansons  de  geste 
are,  after  Anglo-Saxon  and  Icelandic  poetry,  the  oldest 
elaborate  example  of  verse  in  the  modern  vernaculars : 
while  they  exhibit  a  character,  not  indeed  one  of  the 
widest  in  range  or  most  engaging  in  quality,  but  indi- 
vidual, interesting,  intense  as  few  others ;  while  they 
are  entirely  the  property  of  one  nation,  and  that  a 
nation  specially  proud  of  its  literary  achievements, — 
they  were  almost  the  last  division  of  European  litera- 
ture to  become  in  any  degree  properly  known..  In  so 
far  as  they  were  known  at  all,  until  within  the  pre- 
sent century,  the  knowledge  was  based  almost  entirely 
on  later  adaptations  in  verse,  and  still  later  in  prose ; 
while — the  most  curious  point  of  all — they  were  not 
warmly  welcomed  by  tlie  French  even  after  their  dis- 
covery, and  cannot  yet  be  said  to  have  been  taken  to 
the  heart  of  the  nation,  even  to  the  limited  extent  to 
which  tlie  Arthurian  romances  have  been  taken  to 
the  heart  of  England,  much  less  to  that  in  which  the 
old,  but  much  less  old,  ballads  of  England,  Scotland, 
Germany,  and  Spain  have  for  periods  of  varying  length 
been  welcomed  in  their  respective  countries.     To  dis- 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  25 

CUSS  the  reason  of  this  at  length  would  lead  us  out  of 
our  present  subject ;  but  it  is  a  fact,  and  a  very  curi- 
ous fact. 

The  romances  of  Charlemagne,  or,  to  employ  their 
more  technical  designation,  the  chansons  dc  gestc,  form 
Late  discovery  ^  large,  a  remarkably  homogeneous,  and  a 
of  the  chansons,  well-scparatcd  body  of  compositions.  These, 
as  far  as  can  be  decided,  date  in  time  from  the  eleventh 
to  the  thirteenth  century,  with  a  few  belated  repre- 
sentatives in  the  fourteenth ;  but  scarcely,  as  far  as 
probability  shows,  with  any  older  members  in  the 
tenth.  Very  little  attention  of  any  kind  was  paid  to 
them,  till  some  seventy  years  ago,  an  English  scliolar, 
Their  age  Conybcare,  known  for  his  services  to  our 
and  history.  Q^yj^  early  literature,  following  the  example 
of  another  scholar,  Tyrwhitt,  still  earlier  and  more 
distinguished,  had  drawn  attention  to  the  merit  and 
interest  of,  as  it  happens,  the  oldest  and  most  re- 
markable of  all.  This  was  the  Chanson  de  Boland, 
which,  in  this  oldest  form,  exists  only  in  one  of  the 
MSS.  of  the  Bodleian  Library  at  Oxford.  But  they 
very  soon  received  the  care  of  M.  Paulin  Paris,  the 
most  indefatigable  student  that  in  a  century  of  exam- 
ination of  the  older  European  literature  any  European 
country  lias  produced,  and  after  more  than  half  a 
century  of  enthusiastic  resuscitation  by  M.  Paris,  l)y 
his  son  M.  Gaston,  and  by  others,  the  whole  body  of 
them  has  been  thoroughly  overhauled  and  put  at  the 
disposal  of  those  who  do  not  care  to  read  the  original, 
in  the  four  volumes  of  the  remodelled  edition  of  M. 
Leon  Gautier's  EpopScs  Fi^angaiscs,  while  perhaps  a 


2G  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

majority  of  the  actual  texts  are  in  print.  This  is  as 
well,  for  though  a  certain  monotony  is  always  charged 
against  the  chansons  de  geste'^  by  those  who  do  not 
love  them,  and  may  be  admitted  to  some  extent  even 
by  those  who  do,  there  are  few  which  have  not  a  more 
or  less  distinct  character  of  their  own ;  and  even  the 
generic  character  is  not  properly  to  be  perceived 
until  a  considerable  number  have  been  studied. 

The  old  habit  of  reading  this  division  of  romance 

in  late  and  travestied  versions  naturally  and  neces- 

Theirdistin-    sarily  obscurcd  the  curious  traits  of  com- 

guishing  char-  ...  ,  ,  , 

acter.  munity  m  torm  and  matter  that  belong  to 

it,  and  indeed  distinguish  it  from  almost  all  other 
departments  of  literature  of  the  imaginative  kind. 
Its  members  are  frequently  spoken  of  as  "the  Charle- 
magne Romances " ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  most  of 
them  do  come  into  connection  with  the  great  prince 
of  the  second  race  in  one  way  or  another.  Yet  Bodel's 
phrase  of  matUre  de  France  -  is  happier.  For  they  are 
all  still  more  directly  connected  with  Frencli  history, 

^  This  monotony  almost  follows  from  the  title.  For  geste  in  the 
French  is  not  merely  the  equivalent  of  gcsta,  "deeds."  It  is  used 
for  the  record  of  those  deeds,  and  then  for  the  whole  class  or  family 
of  performances  and  records  of  them.  In  this  last  sense  the  gcstcs 
are  in  chief  three — those  of  the  king,  of  Doon  de  Mayence,  and  of 
Garin  de  Montglane — besides  smaller  ones. 

^  Jean  Bodel,  a  trouverc  of  the  thirteenth  century,  furnished  liter- 
ary history  with  a  valuable  stock-quotation  in  the  opening  of  -his 
Chanson  dcs  Saisncs  for  the  three  great  divisions  of  Romance: — 

"  Xe  sont  que  trois  matieres  a  nul  home  attendant, 
Ue  France  et  de  Bretaigne  et  de  Rome  la  grant." 

—Chanson  des  Saxons,  ed.  Michel,  Paris,  1S39,  vol.  i.  p.  1. 

The  lines  following,  less  often  quoted,  are  an  interesting  early  locus 
for  French  literary  patriotism. 


CHANSONS   DE    GESTE.  27 

seen  through  a  romantic  lens ;  and  even  the  late  and 
half  -  burlesque  Hugucs  Cai)et,  even  the  extremely 
interesting  and  partly  contemporary  set  on  the  Crus- 
ades, as  well  as  such  "  little  gcstcs  "  as  that  of  the  Lor- 
rainers,  Gnrin  le  Lohcrain  and  the  rest,  and  the  three 
"  great  gcstes  "  of  the  king,  of  the  southern  hero  William 
of  Orange  (sometimes  called  the  gcstc  of  Montglane), 
and  of  the  family  of  Doon  de  Mayence,  arrange  them- 
selves with  no  difficulty  under  this  more  general  head- 
ing. And  the  chanson  de  gestc  proper,  as  Frenchmen 
are  entitled  to  boast,  never  quite  deserts  this  matidre 
de  France.  It  is  always  the  Gesta  Francoriun  at  home, 
or  the  Gesta  Dei  per  Francos  in  the  East,  that  supply 
the  themes.  When  this  subject  or  group  of  subjects 
palled,  the  very  form  of  the  chanson  de  geste  was  lost. 
It  was  not  applied  to  other  things ;  ^  it  grew  obsolete 
with  that  which  it  had  helped  to  make  popular.  Some 
of  the  material — Huon  of  Bordeaux,  the  Four  Sons  of 
Aymon,  and  others — retained  a  certain  vogue  in  forms 
quite  different,  and  gave  later  ages  the  inexact  and 
bastard  notion  of  "  Charlemagne  Eomance  "  which  has 
been  referred  to.  But  the  chanson  de  gestc  itself  was 
never,  so  to  speak,  "  half-known  " — except  to  a  very 
few  antiquaries.  After  its  three  centuries  of  flourish- 
ing, first  alone,  then  with  the  other  two  "  matters,"  it 
retired  altogether,  and  made  its  reappearance  only 
after  four  centuries  had  passed  away. 

This  fact  or  set  of  facts  has  made  the  actual  nature 
of  the  original  Charlemagne  liomances  the  subject  of 

^  Or  only  in  rare  cases  to  later  French  history  itself — Du  Gues- 
clin,  and  the  Combat  dcs   Trente. 


•28  EUROPEAN   LITERATUIIE,    1100-1300. 

imicli  mistake  and  misstatement  on  the  part  of  gen- 
Mutakes  about  eral  historians  of  literature.  The  widely 
them.  j.gr^(^  r^^iid  generally  accurate  Dunlop  knew 

nothing  whatever  about  them,  except  in  early  printed 
versions  representing  their  very  latest  form,  and  in  the 
hopelessly  travestied  eighteenth -century  Bihliothegue 
(les  Romans  of  the  Comte  de  Tressan.  He  therefore 
assigned  to  them^  a  position  altogether  inferior  to 
their  real  importance,  and  actually  apologised  for  the 
writers,  in  that,  coming  after  the  Arthurian  historians, 
they  were  compelled  to  imitation.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  is  probable  that  all  the  most  striking  and  ori- 
ginal chansons  de  geste,  certainly  all  those  of  the  best 
period,  were  in  existence  before  a  single  one  of  the 
great  Arthurian  romances  was  written;  and  as  both 
the  French  and  English,  and  even  the  German,  writers 
of  these  latter  were  certainly  acquainted  with  the 
chansons,  tlie  imitation,  if  there  were  any,  must  lie  on 
their  side.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  there  is 
little  or  none.  The  later  and  less  genuine  chansons 
borrow  to  some  extent  the  methods  and  incidents  in 
the  romances ;  1  )ut  the  romances  at  no  time  exhibit 
much  resemblance  to  the  chansons  proper,  which  have 
an  extremely  distinct,  racy,  and  original  character  of 
their  own.  Hallam,  writing  later  than  Dunlop,  and  if 
with  a  less  wide  knowledge  of  Ilomance,  with  a  much 
greater  proficiency  in  general   literary  history,  prac- 

^  Dunlop,  History  of  Prose  Fiction  (ed.  Wilson,  London,  1888), 
i.  274-351.  Had  Dunlop  rigidly  confined  himself  to  prose  fiction, 
the  censure  in  the  text  might  not  be  quite  fair.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  he  does  not,  and  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  him  to 
do  so. 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  29 

tically  passes  the  chansons  dc  geste  over  altogether  in 
the  introduction  to  his  Litcrahcre  of  Europe,  which 
purports  to  siimmarise  all  that  is  important  in  the 
History  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  to  supplement  and 
correct  that  book  itself. 

The  only  excuse  (besides  mere  unavoidable  igno- 
rance, which,-  no  doubt,  is  a  sufficient  one)  for  this 
Their  isolation  ueglect  is  the  curious  fact,  in  itself  adding 
and  origin.  ^q  tlicir  interest,  that  these  chansons,  though 
a  very  important  chapter  in  the  histories  both  of 
poetry  and  of  fiction,  form  one  which  is  strangely 
marked  off  at  both  ends  from  all  connection,  save  in 
point  of  subject,  with  literature  precedent  or  subse- 
quent. As  to  their  own  origin,  the  usual  abundant, 
warm,  and  if  it  may  be  said  without  impertinence, 
rather  futile  controversies  have  prevailed.  Prac- 
tically speaking,  we  know  nothing  whatever  about 
the  matter.  There  used  to  be  a  theory  that  the  Char- 
lemagne Romances  owed  their  origin  more  or  less 
directly  to  the  fabulous  Chronicle  of  Tilpin  or  Turpin, 
the  warrior  -  Archbishop  of  Eheims.  It  has  now 
been  made  tolerably  certain  that  the  Latin  chronicle 
on  the  subject  is  not  anterior  even  to  our  existing 
Chanson  dc  Roland,  and  very  probable  that  it  is  a  good 
deal  later.  On  the  other  hand,  of  actual  historical 
basis  we  have  next  to  nothing  except  the  mere  fact  of 
the  death  of  lioland  ("  Hruotlandus  comes  Britannia? ") 
at  the  skirmish  of  lloncesvalles.  There  are,  however, 
early  mentions  of  certain  cantilenm  or  ballads  ;  and  it 
has  been  assumed  by  some  scholars  that  the  earliest 
chansons  were  compounded  out  of  precedent  ballads  of 


30  EUKOPEAN   LlTEltATUlIE,   1100-1300. 

the  kind.  It  is  unnecessary  to  inform  those  wlio 
know  something  of  general  literary  history,  that  this 
theory  (that  the  corruption  of  the  ballad  is  the  gener- 
ation of  the  epic)  is  not  confined  to  the  present  sub- 
ject, but  is  one  of  the  favourite  fighting-grounds  of 
a  certain  school  of  critics.  It  has  been  applied  to 
Homer,  to  Bcotoulf,  to  the  Old  and  Middle  German 
Romances,  and  it  would  be  very  odd  indeed  if  it  had 
not  been  applied  to  the  Chansons  dc  gcste.  But  it  may 
be  said  witli  some  confidence  that  not  one  tittle  of 
evidence  has  ever  been  produced  for  the  existence  of 
any  such  ballads  containing  the  matter  of  any  of  the 
chansons  which  do  exist.  The  song  of  Eoland  which 
Taillefer  sang  at  Hastings  may  have  been  such  a 
ballad :  it  may  have  been  part  of  the  actual  chanson ; 
it  may  have  been  something  quite  different.  But 
these  "  mays  "  are  not  evidence;  and  it  cannot  but  be 
thought  a  real  misfortune  that,  instead  of  confining 
themselves  to  an  abundant  and  indeed  inexhaustible 
subject,  the  proper  literary  study  of  what  does  exist, 
critics  should  persist  in  dealing  with  what  certainly 
does  not,  and  perhaps  never  did.  On  the  general 
point  it  might  be  observed  that  there  is  rather  more 
positive  evidence  for  the  breaking  up  of  the  epic  into 
ballads  than  for  the  conglomeration  of  ballads  into  the 
epic.  But  on  that  point  it  is  not  necessary  to  take 
sides.  The  matter  of  real  importance  is,  to  lay  it 
down  distinctly  that  w^e  have  nothing  anterior  to  the 
earliest  chansons  dc  geste ;  and  that  we  have  not  even 
any  satisfactory  reason  for  presuming  that  there  ever 
was  anything. 


CHANSONS    DE    GESTE.  31 

One  of  the  reasons,  liowever,  which  no  doubt  has 
been  most  apt  to  suggest  anterior  compositions  is  the 
Their  metrical  singular  Completeness  of  form  exhibited  by 
•^'"■'"-  these  poems.     It  is  now  practically  agreed 

tliat — scraps  and  fragments  themselves  excepted — we 
have  no  monument  of  French  in  accomplished  pro- 
fane literature  more  ancient  than  the  Chanson  clc 
IiolandJ  And  the  form  of  this,  though  from  one 
point  of  view  it  may  be  called  rude  and  simple,  is  of 
remarkable  perfection  in  its  own  way.  The  poem  is 
written  in  decasyllabic  iambic  lines  with  a  caesura  at 
the  second  foot,  these  lines  being  written  with  a  pre- 
cision which  French  indeed  never  afterwards  lost,  but 
which  English  did  not  attain  till  Chaucer's  day,  and 
then  lost  again  for  more  than  another  century.  Fur- 
ther, the  grouping  and  finishing  of  these  lines  is  not 
less  remarkable,  and  is  even  more  distinctive  than 
their  internal  construction.  They  are  not  blank  ;  they 
are  not  in  couplets  ;  they  are  not  in  equal  stanzas ; 
and  they  are  not  (in  the  earliest  examples,  such  as 
llola7id)  regularly  rhymed.  But  they  are  arranged  in 
batches  (called  in  French  laisses  or  tirades)  of  no  cer- 
tain number,  but  varying  from  one  to  several  score, 
each  of  which  derives  unity  from  an  assonance — that 
is  to  say,  a  vowel-rhyme,  the  consonants  of  the  final 
syllable  varying  at  discretion.  This  assonance,  which 
appears  to  have  been  common  to  all  liomance  tongues 

^  Editio  princeps  by  Fr.  Michel,  1837.  Since  that  time  it  has  been 
frequently  I'eprinted,  translated,  and  commented.  Those  who  wish 
for  an  exact  reproduction  of  the  oldest  MS.  will  find  it  given  by 
Stengel  (Heilbronn,  1878). 


32  EUROPEAN   LITEKATUKE,    IIOU-ISOO. 

ill  their  early  stages,  disappeared  before  very  long 
from  French,  though  it  continued  in  Spanish,  and  is 
indeed  the  most  distinguishing  point  of  the  prosody  of 
that  language.  Very  early  in  the  chatisons  themselves 
we  find  it  replaced  by  rhyme,  which,  however,  remains 
the  same  for  the  whole  of  the  laisse,  no  matter  how 
long  it  is.  By  degrees,  also,  tlie  ten-syllabled  line 
(which  in  some  examples  has  an  octosyllabic  tail-line 
not  assonanced  at  the  end  of  every  laisse)  gave  way 
in  its  turn  to  the  victorious  Alexandrine.  But  the 
mechanism  of  the  chanson  admitted  no  further  exten- 
sions than  the  substitution  of  rhyme  for  assonance, 
and  of  twelve-syllabled  lines  for  ten-syllabled.  In  all 
other  respects  it  remained  rigidly  the  same  from  the 
eleventh  century  to  the  fourteenth,  and  in  the  very 
latest  examples  of  such  poems,  as  Hugues  Ca2'>et  and 
Baudouin  dc  Sehourc  —  full  as  enthusiasts  like  ]M. 
Gautier  complain  that  they  are  of  a  spirit  very  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  older  chansons — there  is  not  the 
slightest  change  in  form ;  while  certain  peculiarities 
of  stock  phrase  and  "  epic  repetition "  are  jealously 
preserved.  The  immense  single-rhymed  laisscs,  some- 
times extending  to  several  pages  of  verse,  still  roll 
rhyme  after  rhyme  with  the  same  sound  upon  the  ear. 
The  common  form  generally  remains ;  and  though  the 
adventures  are  considerably  varied,  they  still  retain  a 
certain  general  impress  of  the  earlier  scheme. 

That  scheme  is,  in  the  majority  of  the  chansons,  curi- 

Their  scheme  ously  uiiiform.      It  has,  since  the  earliest 

of  matter.       gtudics  of  them,  been  remarked  as  odd  that 

Charlemagne,  though   almost   omnipresent  (except  of 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  33 

course  in  the  Crusading  cycle  and  a  few  others),  and 
though  sucli  a  necessary  figure  that  he  is  in  some  cases 
evidently  confounded  both  with  his  ancestor  Charles 
Martel  and  his  successor  Charles  the  Bald,  plays  a 
part  that  is  very  dubiously  heroic.  He  is,  indeed, 
presented  witli  great  pomp  and  circumstance  as  li 
The  character  0/  empercrcs  ct,  la  harhc  fioric,  with  a  gorgeous 
charieriMgne.  court,  a  widc  realm,  a  numerous  and  brilliant 
baronage.  But  his  character  is  far  from  tenderly  treated. 
In  Moland  itself  he  appears  so  little  that  critics  who  are 
not  acquainted  with  many  other  poems  sometimes 
deny  the  characteristic  we  are  now  discussing.  But 
elsewhere  he  is  much  less  leniently  handled.  Indeed 
the  plot  of  very  many  chansons  turns  entirely  on  the 
ease  with  which  he  lends  an  ear  to  traitors  (treason  of 
various  kinds  plays  an  almost  ubiquitous  part,  and  the 
famous  "  trahis  ! "  is  heard  in  the  very  dawn  of  French 
literature),  on  his  readiness  to  be  biassed  by  bribes, 
and  on  the  singular  ferocity  with  which,  on  the  slightest 
and  most  unsupported  accusation,  he  is  ready  to  doom 
any  one,  from  his  own  family  downwards,  to  block, 
stake,  gallows,  or  living  grave.  This  combination,  in- 
deed, of  the  irascible  and  the  gullible  tempers  in  the  king 
defrays  the  plot  of  a  very  large  number  of  the  chansons, 
in  which  we  see  his  best  knights,  and  (except  that  they 
are  as  intolerant  of  injustice  as  he  is  prone  to  it)  his 
most  faithful  servants,  forced  into  rebellion  against 
him,  and  almost  overwhelmed  by  his  own  violence 
following  on  the  machinations  of  their  and  his  worst 
enemies. 

Nevertheless,  Charlemagne  is  always  the  defender 


34  EUROPEAN   LITERATUKE,    1100-1300. 

of  the  Cross,  and  the  antagonist  of  the  Saracens,  and 
the    part    which    these    latter    play    is    as 

Other  characters      ,  .        .  ,   .  ^  j_i  i      i 

and  character-  ubiquitous  as  his  own,  and  on  the  whole 
isiics.  more  considerable.     A  very  large  part  of 

the  earlier  chansons  is  occupied  with  direct  fighting 
against  the  heathen ;  and  from  an  early  period  (at  least 
if  the  Voyage  a  Constantinohle  is,  as  is  supposed,  of  tlie 
early  twelfth  century,  if  not  the  eleventh)  a  most  im- 
portant element,  bringing  the  class  more  into  contact 
with  romance  generally  than  some  others  which  have 
been  noticed,  is  introduced  in  the  love  of  a  Saracen 
princess,  daughter  of  emperor  or  "  admiral "  (emir),  for 
one  of  the  Christian  heroes.  Here  again  Roland  stands 
alone,  and  though  the  mention  of  Aude,  Oliver's  sister 
and  Iloland's  betrothed,  who  dies  wlien  she  hears  of  his 
death,  is  toucliing,  it  is  extremely  meagre.  There  is 
practically  nothing  but  the  clash  of  arms  in  this 
remarkable  poem.  But  elsewhere  there  is,  in  rather 
narrow  and  usual  limits,  a  good  deal  else.  Charle- 
magne's daughter,  and  the  daughters  of  peers  and 
paladins,  figure :  and  their  characteristics  are  not  very 
different  from  those  of  the  pagan  damsels.  It  is,  indeed, 
unnecessary  to  convert  them, — a  process  to  which  their 
miscreant  sisters  usually  submit  with  great  goodwill, — 
and  they  are  also  relieved  from  the  necessity  of  showing 
the  extreme  undutifulness  to  their  more  religiously  con- 
stant sires,  which  is  something  of  a  blot  on  Paynim 
princesses  like  Floripas  in  Fierahras.  Tliis  heroine 
exclaims  in  reference  to  her  father,  "  He  is  an  old 
devil,  why  do  you  not  kill  him  ?  little  I  care  for  him 
provided  you  give  me  Guy,"  though  it  is  fair  to  say 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  35 

that  Fierabras  himself  rebukes  her  with  a  "  Moult 
"rant  tort  aves."  All  these  ladies,  however,  Christian 
as  well  as  heathen,  are  as  tender  to  their  lovers  as  they 
are  hard-hearted  to  their  relations ;  and  the  relaxation 
of  morality,  sometimes  complained  of  in  the  later 
chansons,  is  perhaps  more  technical  than  real,  even 
remembering  the  doctrine  of  the  mediaeval  Churcli  as 
to  the  identity,  for  practical  purposes,  of  betrothal  and 
marriage.  On  the  other  hand,  the  courtesy  of  the 
cJiansons  is  distinctly  in  a  more  rudimentary  state  than 
that  of  the  succeeding  romances.  Not  only  is  the 
harshest  language  used  by  knights  to  ladies,^  but  blows 
are  by  no  means  uncommon ;  and  of  what  is  commonly 
understood  by  romantic  love  there  is  on  the  knights' 
side  hardly  a  trace,  unless  it  be  in  stories  such  as  that 
of  Ogier  le  Danois,  which  are  obviously  late  enough  to 
have  come  under  Arthurian  influence.  The  piety, 
again,  which  has  been  so  much  praised  in  these  chan- 
sons, is  of  a  curious  and  rather  elementary  type.  The 
knights  are  ready  enough  to  fight  to  tlie  last  gasp,  and 
the  last  drop  of  blood,  for  the  Cross ;  and  their  faith  is 
as  free  from  flaw  as  their  zeal.  Li  Ajjostoiles  de  Itoiiic — 
the  Pope — is  recognised  without  the  slightest  hesitation 
as  supreme  in  all  religious  and  most  temporal  matters. 
But  there  is  much  less  reference  than  in  the  Arthurian 
romances,  not  merely  to  the  mysteries  of  the  Creed,  but 
even  to  the  simple  facts  of  the  birth  and  death  of 
Christ.  Except  in  a  few  places — such  as,  for  instance, 
the  exquisite  and  widely  popular  story  of  Ajiiis  and 

^  V.  infra  on  the  scene  in  Aliscuns  between  William  uf  Orange  and 
his  sister  Queen  ISlancliefleur. 


30  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

Amiles  (the  earliest  vernacular  form  of  which  is  a  true 
chanson  de  geste  of  the  twelfth  century) — there  are  not 
many  indications  of  any  higher  or  finer  notion  of 
Christianity  than  that  which  is  confined  to  the  obedient 
reception  of  the  sacraments,  and  the  cutting  off  Sara- 
cens' heads  whensoever  they  present  themselves.^ 

In  mannei's,  as  in  theology  and  ethics,  there  is 
the  same  simplicity,  which  some  have  called  almost 
Realist  barbarous.  Architecture  and  dress  receive 
quality.  considerable  attention ;  but  in  other  ways 
the  arts  do  not  seem  to  be  far  advanced,  and  living  is 
still  conducted  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  much  in  public 
as  in  the  Odyssey  or  in  Beowidf.  The  hall  is  still 
the  common  resort  of  both  sexes  by  day  and  of  the 
men  at  niglit.  Although  gold  and  furs,  silk  and  jewels, 
are  lavished  with  the  usual  cheap  magnificence  of 
fiction,  very  few  details  are  given  of  the  minor  sitpellex 
or  of  ways  of  living  generally.  From  the  Chanson 
de  Roland  in  particular  (which,  though  it  is  a  pity 
to  confine  the  attention  to  it  as  has  sometimes  been 
done,  is  undoubtedly  the  type  of  the  class  in  its 
simplest  and  purest  form)  we  should  learn  next  to 
nothing  about  the  state  of  society  depicted,  except 
that  its  heroes  were  religious  in  their  fashion,  and 
terrible  fighters.  But  it  ought  to  be  added  that  the 
perusal  of  a  large  number  of  these  chansons  leaves 
on  the  mind  a  much  more  genuine  belief  in  their 
world  (if  it  may  so  be  called)  as  having  for  a  time 
actually  existed,  than  that  which  is  created   by  the 

^  Even  the  famous  and  very  admirable  death-scene  of  Vivien  (again 
t>.  infra)  will  not  disprove  these  remarks. 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  37 

reading  of  Arthurian  romance.  That  fair  vision  we 
know  (hardly  knowing  why  or  how  we  know  it)  to 
have  been  a  creation  of  its  own  Fata  Morgana,  a 
structure  built  of  the  wishes,  the  dreams,  the  ideals  of 
men,  but  far  removed  from  their  actual  experience. 
This  is  not  due  to  miracles — there  are  miracles  enough 
in  the  chansons  dc  gestc  most  undoubtingly  related  : 
nor  to  the  strange  history,  geography,  and  chronology, 
for  the  two  divisions  are  very  much  on  a  par  there 
also.  But  strong  as  the  fantastic  element  is  in  them, 
the  chansons  de  gcstc  possess  a  realistic  quality  which 
is  entirely  absent  from  the  gracious  idealism  of  the 
Eomances.  The  emperors  and  the  admirals,  perhaps 
even  their  fair  and  obliging  daughters,  were  not  person- 
ages unknown  to  the  contemporaries  of  the  Norman 
conquerors  of  Italy  and  Sicily,  or  to  the  first  Crusaders. 
The  faithful  and  ferocious,  covetous  and  indomitable, 
pious  and  lawless  spirit,  which  hardly  dropped  the 
sword  except  to  take  up  the  torch,  was,  poetic  pre- 
sentation and  dressing  apart,  not  so  very  different 
from  the  general  temper  of  man  after  the  break  up  of 
the  Eoman  peace  till  the  more  or  less  definite  mapping 
out  of  Europe  into  modern  divisions.  More  than  one 
Vivien  and  one  William  of  Orange  listened  to  Peter 
the  Hermit.  In  the  very  isolation  of  the  atmosphere 
of  these  romances,  in  its  distance  from  modern  thought 
and  feeling,  in  its  lack  (as  some  have  held)  of 
universal  quality  and  transcendent  hv^man  interest, 
there  is  a  certain  element  of  strength.  It  was  not 
above  its  time,  and  it  therefore  does  not  reach  the 
highest  forms  of  literature.     But  it  was  intensely  of 


38  EUROrEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

its  time ;  and  thus  it  far  exceeds  the  lowest  kinds, 
and  retains  an  abiding  vakie  even  apart  from  the 
distinct,  the  high,  and  the  very  cnrious  perfection, 
within  narrow  limits,  of  its  peculiar  form. 

It  is  probable  that  very  few  persons  who  are  not 
specially  acquainted  with  the  subject  are  at  all  aware 
voiumeandage  of  the  enomious  bulk  and  number  of  these 
o/{7ie  chansons,  poems,  evou  if  their  later  remanievients  (as 
they  are  called)  both  in  verse  and  prose — fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  century  refashionings,  which  in  every 
case  meant  a  large  extension — be  left  out  of  considera- 
tion. The  most  complete  list  published,  that  of  M. 
Leon  Gautier,  enumerates  110.  Of  these  he  himself 
places  only  the  Chanson  dc  llolancl  in  the  eleventh 
century,  perhaps  as  early  as  the  iSTorman  Conquest 
of  England,  certainly  not  later  than  1095.  To  the 
twelfth  he  assigns  (and  it  may  be  observed  that, 
enthusiastic  as  M.  Gautier  is  on  the  literary  side,  he 
shows  on  all  questions  of  age,  &c.,  a  wariness  not 
always  exhibited  by  scholars  more  exclusively  philo- 
logical) Acquin,  Aliscans,  Amis  et  Amiles,  Antioche 
Aspremont,  Auheri  le  Bourgoing,  Aye  d' Avignon,  the  Ba- 
taille  Loquifer,  the  oldest  (now  only  known  in  Italian) 
form  of  Berte  aus  grans  Bids,  Beuves  d' Hansto7ie  (with 
another  Italian  form  more  or  less  independent),  the 
Twelfth  Cliarroi  de  Nimes,  Les  C%6tifs,  the  Ghevalcrie 
century.  Qgicr  dc  Danemarchc,  the  Chcvalerie  Vivien 
(otherwise  known  as  Covenant  Vivien),  the  major  part 
(also  known  by  separate  titles)  of  the  Chevalier  au 
Cygne,  La  Conqiiete  de  la  Betite  Bretagne  (another  form  of 
Acquin),  the  Couronnement  Loys,  Boon  de  la  Boche,  Boon 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  39 

dc  Nmitenil,  the  Enfaiiccs  Cliarlemagnc,  the  Enfances 
Godefroi,  the  Enfances  Roland,  the  Enfances  Ogier, 
Floovant,  Garin  le  Loherain,  Gamier  cle  Nanteuil, 
Giratz  de  Eossilho,  Girhcri  de  Metz,  G^ii  de  Bourgogne, 
Gui  de  Nanteuil,  Helias,  JTervis  de  Metz,  the  oldest 
form  of  Huon  de  Bordeaux,  J6rusaleni,  Jourdains  de 
Blaivies,  the  Lorraine  cycle,  including  Garin,  &c., 
Macaire,  Mainet,  the  Moniage  Guillaume,  the  Moniage 
Rainoart,  Orson  d.e  Beauvais,  Rainoart,  Raoid  de 
Camhrai,  Les  Saisnes,  the  Sitge  de  Barhastre,  Syracon,  and 
the  Voyage  de  Charlemagne.  In  other  words,  nearly  half 
the  total  number  date  from  the  twelfth  century,  if  not 
even  earlier. 

By  far  the  larger  number  of  the  rest  are  not  later 
than  the  thirteenth.  They  include — Ainieri  de  Nar- 
Thirtcenth  honne,  Aiol,  Ans6is  de  Carthage,  Ans4is  Fils 
century.  ^g  Gcrlcrt,  Aubcron,  Berte  aus  grans  Pi^s 
in  its  present  ^French  form,  Beton  et  Daurel,  Beuves  de 
Commarchis,  the  Bepartement  des  Enfans  Aimeri,  the 
Destruction  de  Rome,  Boon  de  Mayence,  Elie  de  Saint 
Grilles,  the  Enfances  Boon  de  Mayence,  the  Enfances 
G^dllaume,  the  Enfaiices  Vivien,  the  Entrde  en  Es- 
pagne,  Fierabras,  Foulques  de  Candie,  Gaydon,  Garin 
de  Montglane,  Gaufrey,  Gerard  de  Viane,  G^cihert 
d'Andrcnas,  Jchan  de  Bauson,  Maugis  d' Aigremont, 
the  Mort  Aimeri  de  Narhonne,  Otinel,  Parise  la  Duch- 
esse,  the  Prise  de  Cordres,  the  Prise  de  Pam^Jclune,  the 
Quatre  Fils  d'Aymon,  Renaud  de  Montanhan  (a  variant 
of  the  same),  Renier,  the  later  forms  of  the  Chanson 
de  Roland,  to  which  the  name  of  Roncevanx  is  some- 
times given  for  the  sake  of  distinction,  the  Sikfe  de 


40  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

Narhonne,  Simon  de  Pouille,  Vivien  VAmackour  de 
Montbranc,  and   Yon. 

By  this  the  list  is  almost  exhausted.  The  four- 
teenth century,  though  fruitful  in  mnaniemcnts,  some- 
Fourteenth,  times  in  mono-rliymed  tirades,  but  often  in 
mid  later.  Alexandrine  couplets  and  other  changed 
shapes,  contributes  hardly  anything  original  except 
the  very  interesting  and  rather  brilliant  last  branches 
of  the  Chevalier  au  Cygne — Baudouin  de  Sebourc,  and 
the  Bastari  de  Bouillon ;  Hugues  Capet,  a  very  lively 
and  readable  but  slightly  vulgar  thing,  exhibiting  an 
almost  undisguised  tone  of  parody ;  and  some  frag- 
ments known  by  the  names  of  Hcrnaut  de  Bcaulande, 
Bcnier  de  Gcnnes,  &c.  As  for  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
century  work,  though  some  pieces  of  it,  especially  the 
very  long  and  unprinted  poem  of  Lion  de  Bourges,  are 
included  in  the  canon,  all  the  c/ia7iso7i-production  of 
this  time  is  properly  apocryphal,  and  has  little  or 
nothing  left  of  the  chanson  spirit,  and  only  the  shell 
of  the  chanson  form. 

It  must  further  be  remembered  that,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  very  few  in  fragmentary  condition,  all  these 
Chansons™   pocms  are  of  great  length.     Only  the  later 
print.  Qj.  jggg  ggnxiine,  indeed,  run  to  the  prepos- 

terous extent  of  twenty,  thirty,  or  (it  is  said  in  the 
case  of  Lion  de  Bourges)  sixty  thousand  lines.  But 
Roland  itself,  one  of  the  shortest,  has  four  thousand ; 
Aliscans,  which  is  certainly  old,  eight  thousand ;  the 
oldest  known  form  of  Huon,  ten  thousand.  It  is  pro- 
bably not  excessive  to  put  the  average  length  of  the 
older  chansons  at  six  thousand   lines;    while   if   the) 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  41 

more  recent  be  thrown  in,  the  average  of  the  whole 
hundred  would  probably  be  doubled. 

This  immense  body  of  verse,  which  for  many  reasons 
it  is  very  desirable  to  study  as  a  whole,  is  still,  after 
the  best  part  of  a  century,  to  a  great  extent  imprinted, 
and  (as  was  unavoidable)  suoh  of  its  constituents  as 
have  been  sent  to  press  have  been  dealt  with  on  no 
very  uniform  principles.  It  was  less  inevitable,  and 
is  more  to  be  regretted,  that  the  dissensions  of  scholars 
on  minute  philological  points  have  caused  the  repeated 
printing  of  certain  texts,  while  others  have  remained 
inaccessible ;  and  it  cannot  but  be  regarded  as  a  kind 
of  petty  treason  to  literature  thus  to  put  the  satisfac- 
tion of  private  crotchets  before  the  "  unlocking  of  the 
word-hoard  "  to  the  utmost  possible  extent.  The  ear- 
liest chansons  printed  ^  were,  I  believe,  M.  Paulin  Paris's 
Berte  aus  grans  Pids,  M.  Francisque  Michel's  Roland  ; 
and  thereafter  these  two  scholars  and  others  edited  for  M. 
Techener  a  very  handsome  set  of  "  Eomances  des  Douze 
Pairs,"  as  they  were  called,  including  Les  Saisnes,  Ogier, 
Raoul  tU  Cambrai,  Garin,  and  the  two  great  crusading 
chansons,  Antioche  and  Jerusalem,  Other  scattered 
efforts  were  made,  such  as  the  publication  of  a  beau- 
tiful edition  of  Baudo7tm  de  Sehourc  at  Valenciennes 
as  early  as  1841 ;  while  a  Belgian  scholar,  M.  de 
Reiffenberg,  published  Ze  Chevalier  ait  Cygnc,  and  a 
Dutch  one,  Dr  Jonckbloet,  gave  a  large  part  of  the 
later  numbers  of  the  Garin  de  Montglane  cycle  in  his 
Guillaumc  d'Orange  (2  vols..  The  Hague,  1854).     But 

^  Immanuel  Bekker  had  priuted  the  Provencal  Ficrahms  as  early 
as  1829. 


42  EUROrEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

the  great  opportunity  came  soon  after  the  accession 
of  Napoleon  III.,  when  a  Minister  favourable  to 
literature,  M.  de  Fourtou,  gave,  in  a  moment  of 
enthusiasm,  permission  to  publish  the  entire  body  of 
the  chansons.  Perfect  wisdom  would  probably  have 
decreed  the  acceptance  of  the  godsend  by  issuing  the 
whole,  with  a  minimum  of  editorial  apjiaratus,  in 
some  such  form  as  that  of  our  Chalmers's  Poets,  the 
bulk  of  which  need  probably  not  have  been  exceeded 
in  order  to  give  the  oldest  forms  of  every  real  chanson 
from  Roland  to  the  Bastart  de  Bouillon.  But  perfect 
wisdom  is  not  invariably  present  in  the  councils  of 
men,  and  the  actual  result  took  the  form  of  ten  agree- 
able little  volumes,  in  the  type,  shape,  and  paper  of 
the  "  Bibliotheque  Elzevirienne  with  abundant  edi- 
torial matter,  paraphrases  in  modern  French,  and  the 
like.  Lcs  Ancie7is  Podtes  de  la  France,  as  this  series 
was  called,  appeared  between  1858,  which  saw  the 
first  volume,  and  1870,  which  fatal  year  saw  the  last, 
for  the  Republic  had  no  money  to  spare  for  such 
monarchical  glories  as  the  chansons.  They  are  no 
contemptible  possession ;  for  the  ten  volumes  give 
fourteen  chansons  of  very  different  ages,  and  rather  in- 
terestingly representative  of  different  kinds.  But  they 
are  a  very  small  portion  of  the  whole,  and  in  at  least 
one  instance,  Aliscans,  they  double  on  a  former  edition. 
Since  then  the  Societe  des  Ancieus  Textes  Fran9ais  has 
edited  some  chansons,  and  independent  German  and 
French  scholars  have  given  some  more  ;  but  no  system- 
atic attempt  has  been  made  to  fill  the  gaps,  and  the 
pernicious  system  of  re-editing,  on  pretext  of  wrong 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  43 

selection  of  MSS.  or  the  like,  has  continued.  Neverthe- 
less, the  number  of  chansons  actually  available  is  so  large 
that  no  general  characteristic  is  likely  to  have  escaped 
notice ;  while  from  the  accounts  of  the  remaining 
MSS.,  it  would  not  appear  that  any  of  those  unprinted 
can  rank  with  the  very  best  of  those  already  known. 
Among  these  very  best  I  should  rank  in  alphabetical 
order — Aliscans,  Amis  ct  Amilcs,  Antioche,  Baudouin 
de  Scbourc  (though  iu  a  mixed  kind),  Bcrte  aus  grans 
Pi6s,  Ficrahras,  Garin  le  Loherain,  GSrard  de  Roussillon, 
Huon  de  Bordeavx,  0(jier  de  Daneiaarche,  Raoid  dc 
Camhrai,  Roland,  and  the  Voyage  de  Charlemagne  ct 
Constantinohle.  The  almost  solitary  eminence  assigned 
by  some  critics  to  Roland  is  not,  I  think,  justified, 
and  comes  chiefly  from  their  not  being  acquainted 
with  many  others  ;  though  the  poem  has  undoubtedly 
the  merit  of  being  the  oldest,  and  perhaps  that  of 
presenting  the  chanson  spirit  in  its  best  and  most 
unadulterated,  as  well  as  the  chanson  form  at  its  sim- 
plest, sharpest,  and  first  state.  ISTor  is  there  anywhere 
a  finer  passage  than  the  death  of  Eoland,  though  there 
are  many  not  less  fine. 

It  may,  however,  seem  proper,  if  not  even  positively 
indispensable,  to  give  some  more  general  particulars 
about  these  chansons  before  analysing  specimens  or 
giving  arguments  of  one  or  more ;  for  they  are  full  of 
curiosities. 

In  the  first  place,  it  will  be  noticed  by  careful  readers 
Language.  Oo  ^^  ^hc  list  above  glvcu,  that  thcsc  composi- 
andoii  tlous  are  not  limited  to  French  proper  or 

to  the  langne  d'o'il,  though  infinitely  the  grc^ater  part  of 


44  EUROrEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

tliein  are  in  tliat  tongue.  Indeed,  for  some  time  after 
attention  had  been  drawn  to  them,  and  before  their  ac- 
tual natures  and  contents  had  been  thoroughly  examined, 
there  was  a  theory  that  they  were  Provencal  in  origin. 
This,  though  it  was  chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that  Eayn- 
ouard,  Fauriel,  and  other  early  students  of  old  French 
had  a  strong  southern  leaning,  had  some  other  excuses. 
It  is  a  fact  that  ProveuQal  was  earlier  in  its  develop- 
ment than  French  ;  and  whether  by  irregular  tradition 
of  this  fact,  or  owing  to  ignorance,  or  from  anti-French 
prejudice  (which,  however,  would  not  apply  in  France 
itself),  the  part  of  the  lanc/uc  d'oc  in  the  early  literature 
of  Europe  was  for  centuries  largely  overvalued.  Then 
came  the  usual  reaction,  and  some  fifty  years  ago  or 
so  one  of  the  most  capable  of  literary  students  declared 
roundly  that  the  ProvenQal  epic  had  "  le  defaut  d'etre 
perdu."  That  is  not  quite  true.  There  is,  as  noted 
above,  a  I'roven^al  Fierabras,  though  it  is  beyond  doubt 
an  adaptation  of  the  French ;  Betonnet  d' Hanstone  or 
Beton  ct  Daurel  only  exists  in  Provencal,  though  there 
is  again  no  doubt  of  its  being  borrowed ;  and,  lastly, 
the  oldest  existing,  and  probably  the  original,  form  of 
Gdrard  de  Eoussillon,  Giratz  de  Rossilho,  is,  as  its  title 
implies,  Provengal,  though  it  is  in  a  dialect  more  ap- 
proaching to  the  langue  d'o'il  than  any  form  of  oc,  and 
even  presents  the  curious  peculiarity  of  existing  in 
two  forms,  one  leaning  to  Provencal,  the  other  to 
French.  But  these  very  facts,  though  they  show  the 
statement  that  "  the  Provencal  epic  is  lost "  to  be  ex- 
cessive, yet  go  almost  farther  than  a  total  deficiency  in 
proving  that  the  chanson  de  geste  was  not  originally 


CHANSOXS   DE   GESTE.  45 

ProveiK^'al.  Had  it  been  otherwise,  there  can  be  no 
possible  reason  wliy  a  bare  three  per  cent  of  the  exist- 
ing examples  should  be  in  the  southern  tongue,  while 
two  of  these  are  evidently  translations,  and  the  third 
was  as  evidently  written  on  the  very  northern  borders 
of  the  "  Limousin  "  district. 

The  next  fact — one  almost  more  interesting,  inas- 
much   as   it   bears  on   that   community  of  Romance 
tongues    of    which   we   have   evidence   in 

Italian.  t^iii 

Dante,^  and  perhaps  also  makes  tor  the 
antiquity  of  the  Charlemagne  story  in  its  primitive 
form — is  the  existence  of  chansons  in  Italian,  and,  it 
may  be  added,  in  a  most  curious  bastard  speech  which 
is  neither  French,  nor  Provenq-al,  nor  Italian,  but 
French  Italicised  in  part.-  The  substance,  moreover, 
of  the  Charlemagne  stories  was  very  early  naturalised 
in  Italy  in  the  form  of  a  sort  of  abstract  or  compila- 
tion called  the  Bcali  di  Francia^  which  in  various 
forms  maintained  popularity  through  mediaeval  and 
early  modern  times,  and  undoubtedly  exercised  much 
influence  on  the  great  Italian  poets  of  the  Renais- 
sance. They  were  also  diffused  throughout  Europe, 
the  Carlamagnus  Saga  in  Iceland  marking  their  farthest 
actual  as  well  as  possible  limit,  though  they  never  in 
Germany  attained  anything  like  the  popularity  of  the 
Arthurian  legend,  and  though  the  Spaniards,  patrioti- 
cally resenting  the  frequent  forays  into  Spain  to  which 

^  V.  the  famous  aud  all-imiaortant  ninth  chapter  of  the  first  book 
of  the  De  Vulyari  Eloquio. 

-  See  especially  Macaire,  ed.  Guessard,  Paris,  1860. 
'^  So  also  the  acstc  of  Montglane  became  the  Ncrhonesi. 


46  EUROPEAN   LITEEATURE,    1100-1300. 

the  chaoisons  bear  witness,  and  availing  themselves  of 
Diffusion  of  the  ^h©  confcssion  of  cHsaster  at  Roncesvalles, 
chansons.  gg^  ^^p  r^  countcr-story  in  whicli  Eoland  is 
personally  worsted  by  Bernardo  del  Carpio,  and  the 
quarrels  of  the  payninis  are  taken  up  by  Spain  herself. 
In  England  the  imitations,  though  fairly  numerous, 
are  rather  late.  They  have  been  completely  edited 
for  the  Early  English  Text  Society,  and  consist  (for 
Bevis  of  Hampton  has  little  relation  with  its  chanson 
namesake  save  the  name)  of  Sir  Ferumbras  {Fiera- 
hras),  The  Siege  of  M.ilan,  Sir  Otnel  (two  forms),  the 
Life  of  Charles  the  Great,  The  Soudone  of  Babylone, 
Huon  of  Bordeaux,  and  The  Four  Sons  of  Aymon, 
besides  a  very  curious  semi  -  original  entitled  Rauf 
Coilzcar  (Collier),  in  which  the  well-known  romance- 
donnSe  of  the  king  visiting  some  obscure  person  is 
applied  to  Charlemagne.  Of  these,  one,  the  version 
of  Huon  of  Bordeaux}  is  literature  of  no  mean  kind ; 
but  this  is  because  it  was  executed  by  Lord  Ber- 
ners,  long  after  our  jDrcsent  period.  Also,  being 
of  that  date,  it  represents  the  latest  French  form  of 
the  story,  which  was  a  very  popular  one,  and  incor- 
porated very  large  borrowings  from  other  sources 
(the  loadstone  rock,  the  punishment  of  Cain,  and 
so  forth)  which  are  foreign  to  the  subject  and  sub- 
stance of  the  chansons  proper. 

„,,  .      ,,  Very  great  pains  have  been  spent  on  the 

ship  and  pubii-  question  of  the  authorship,  publication,  or 

cation.  p  „    , ,  .  ^  .  .        . 

periormance  or  these  compositions.     As  is 
the  case  with  so  much  mediaeval  work,  the  great  mass 

1  Ed.  S.  Lee,  Luudon,  1SS3-86. 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  47 

of  them  is  entirely  anonymous.  A  line  which  con- 
cludes, or  rather  supplements,  Roland — 

"  Ci  fait  la  geste  que  Turoldus  declinet  " — 

has  been  the  occasion  of  the  shedding  of  a  very  great 
deal  of  ink.  The  enthusiastic  inquisitiveness  of  some 
has  ferreted  about  in  all  directions  for  Turolds,  Thor- 
olds,  or  Therouldes,  in  the  eleventh  century,  and  dis- 
covering them  even  among  the  companions  of  the 
Conqueror  himself,  has  started  the  question  whether 
Taillefer  was  or  was  not  violating  the  copyright  of  his 
comrade  at  Hastings.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  the 
best  authorities  are  very  much  at  sea  as  to  the  mean- 
ing of  declinet,  which,  thougli  it  must  signify  "  go 
over,"  "  tell  like  a  bead  -  roll,"  in  some  way  or  other, 
might  be  susceptible  of  application  to  authorship, 
recitation,  oi  even  copying.  In  some  other  cases,  how- 
ever, we  have  more  positive  testimony,  though  they 
are  in  a  great  minority.  Graindor  of  Douai  refashioned 
the  work  of  Eichard  the  Pilgrim,  an  actual  partaker 
of  the  first  Crusade,  into  the  present  Antioclie,  Jeru- 
salem, and  perhaps  Lcs  CMtifs.  Either  Eichard  or 
Graindor  must  have  been  one  of  the  very  best  poets  of 
the  whole  cycle.  Jehan  de  Flagy  wrote  the  spirited 
Gavin  Ic  Lohcrain;  and  Jehan  Bodel  of  Arras  Lcs  Saisnes. 
Adenes  le  Eoi,  a  trovverc,  of  whose  actual  position  in 
the  world  we  know  a  little,  wrote  or  refashioned  three 
or  four  chansons  of  the  thirteenth  century,  including 
Berte  aus  grans  Piis,  and  one  of  the  forms  of  part  of 
Ogier.  Other  names  —  Bertrand  of  Bar  sur  Aube, 
Pierre  de  Eieu,  Gerard  d'xVmiens,  Eaimbert  de  Paris, 


48  EUROPEAN    LITERATUEE,   1100-1300. 

Brianclion  (almost  a  character  of  Balzac !),  Gautier  of 
Douai,  Nicolas  of  Padua  (an  interesting  person  who 
was  warned  in  a  dream  to  save  his  soul  by  compiling 
a  chanson),  Herbert  of  Dammartin,  Guillaume  de 
I'apaume,  Huon  de  Villeneuve — are  mere  shadows  of 
names  to  which  in  nearly  all  cases  no  personality 
attaches,  and  which  may  be  as  often  those  of  mere 
jongleurs  as  of  actual  poets. 

No  subject,  however,  in  connection  with  these 
chansons  de  gcste  has  occupied  more  attention  than  the 
Their  per-  precisc  modc  of  wliat  has  been  called  above 
fortruince.  their  "  authorsliip,  publication,  or  perform- 
ance." They  are  called  chansons,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  at  all  that  in  their  inception,  and  during  the 
earlier  and  better  part  of  their  history,  they  strictly 
deserved  the  name,  having  been  written  not  to  be 
read  but  to  be  sung  or  recited.  To  a  certain 
extent,  of  course,  this  was  the  case  with  all  the 
lighter  literature  of  mediaeval  times.  Far  later  than 
our  present  period  the  English  metrical  romances 
almost  invariably  begin  with  the  minstrel's  invocation, 
"  Listen,  lordings,"  varied  according  to  his  taste,  fancy, 
and  metre ;  and  what  was  then  partly  a  tradition,  was 
two  or  three  hundred  years  earlier  the  simple  record 
of  a  universal  practice.  Since  the  early  days  of 
the  Itomantic  revival,  even  to  the  present  time,  the 
minutest  details  of  this  singing  and  recitation  have 
been  the  subject  of  endless  wrangling ;  and  even  the 
point  whether  it  was  "  singing "  or  "  recitation "  has 
been  argued.  In  a  wider  and  calmer  view  these  things 
become  of  very  small  interest.     Singing  and  recitation 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  49 

— as  the  very  word  recitative  should  be  enough  to 
remind  any  one — pass  into  each  other  by  degrees  im- 
perceptible to  any  but  a  technical  ear ;  and  the  instru- 
ments, if  any,  which  accompanied  the  performance  of 
the  chansons,  the  extent  of  that  accompaniment,  and 
the  rest,  concern,  if  they  concern  history  at  all,  the 
Idstory  of  music,  not  that  of  literature. 

But    it    is    a    matter    of    quite    other    importance 

that,   as  has   been   said,  lighter   mediaeval   literature 

„    .  generally,  and  the  chansons  in  particular, 

Hearing,  not    o  </  '  j-  ' 

reading,  the     wcrc    meant    for    tlic    car,    not    the    eye 
oject.  — ^^  ^^  heard,  not  to  be  read.     For  this 

intention  very  closely  concerns  some  of  their  most 
important  literary  characteristics.  It  is  certain  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  though  it  might  not  be  very  easy 
to  account  for  it  as  a  matter  of  argument,  that  re- 
petitions, stock  phrases,  identity  of  scheme  and 
form,  which  are  apt  to  be  felt  as  disagreeable  in 
reading,  are  far  less  irksome,  and  even  have  a  certain 
attraction,  in  matter  orally  delivered.  Whether  that 
slower  irritation  of  the  mind  through  the  ear  of  which 
Horace  speaks  supplies  the  explanation  may  be  left 
undiscussed.  But  it  is  certain  that,  especially  for 
uneducated  hearers  (who  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries,  if  not  in  the  thirteenth,  must  have  been  the 
enormous  majority),  not  merely  the  phraseological  but 
the  rhythmical  peculiarities  of  the  chansons  would  be 
specially  suitable.  In  particular,  the  long  maintenance 
Effect  on  0^  ^hc  mono-rhymcd,  or  even  the  single- 
prosody.  assouauccd,  tirade  depends  almost  entirely 
upon  its  being  delivered  vivd  voce.     Only  then  does 


50  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

that  wave-clash  which  has  been  spoken  of  produce  its 
effect,  while  the  unbroken  uniformity  of  rhyme  on  the 
printed  page,  and  the  apparent  absence  of  uniformity  in 
the  printed  assonances,  are  almost  equally  annoying  to 
the  eye.  Nor  is  it  important  or  superfluous  to  note 
that  this  oral  literature  had,  in  the  Teutonic  countries 
and  in  England  more  especially,  an  immense  influence 
(hitherto  not  nearly  enough  allowed  for  by  literary 
historians)  in  the  great  change  from  a  stressed  and 
alliterative  to  a  quantitative  and  rhymed  prosody,  which 
took  place,  with  us,  from  about  1200  a.d.  Accustomed 
as  were  the  ears  of  all  to  quantitative  (though  very 
licentiously  quantitative)  and  rhymed  measures  in  the 
hymns  and  services  of  the  Church — the  one  literary 
exercise  to  which  gentle  and  simple,  learned  and  un- 
learned, were  constantly  and  regularly  addicted — it 
was  almost  impossible  that  they  should  not  demand 
a  similar  prosody  in  the  profaner  compositions  ad- 
dressed to  them.  That  this  would  not  affect  the 
chansons  themselves  is  true  enough ;  for  there  are  no 
relics  of  any  alliterative  prosody  in  French,  and  its 
accentual  scanning  is  only  the  naturally  "  crumbled  " 
quantity  of  Latin.  But  it  is  extremely  important  to 
note  that  the  metre  of  these  chansons  themselves, 
single  -  rhyme  and  all,  directly  influenced  English 
writers.  Of  this,  however,  more  will  be  found  in 
the  chapter  on  the  rise  of  English  literature  proper. 
Another,  and  for  literature  a  hardly  less  important, 
consequence  of  this  intention  of  being  heard, 
was  that  probably  from  the  very  first,  and 
certainly  from  an  early  period,  a  distinction,  not  very 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  51 

different  from  that  afterwards  occasioned  Ijv  the  drama, 
took  place  between  the  trouvtre,  who  invented  the 
chanson  and  the  jongleur  or  minstrel  who  introduced 
it.  At  first  these  parts  may,  for  better  or  worse,  have 
been  doubled.  But  it  would  seldom  happen  that  the 
poet  who  had  the  wits  to  indite  would  have  the  skill 
to  perform;  and  it  would  happen  still  seldomer  that 
those  whose  gifts  lay  in  the  direction  of  interpretation 
would  have  the  poetical  spirit.  Nor  is  it  wonderful 
that,  in  the  poems  themselves,  we  find  considerably 
more  about  the  performer  than  about  the  author.  In 
the  cases  where  they  were  identical,  the  author  would 
evidently  be  merged  in  the  actor ;  in  cases  where 
they  were  not,  the  actor  would  take  care  of  himself. 
Accordingly,  though  we  know  if  possible  even  less  of 
the  names  of  the  Jongleurs  than  of  those  of  the  trouvtrcs, 
we  know  a  good  deal  about  their  methods.  Very 
rarely  does  an  author  like  Nicolas  of  Padua  {v.  supra) 
tell  us  so  much  as  his  motive  for  composing  the  poems. 
But  the  patient  study  of  critics,  eked  out  it  may  be  by 
a  little  imagination  here  and  there,  has  succeeded  in 
elaborating  a  fairly  complete  account  of  the  ways  and 
fortunes  of  the  jongleur,  who  also  not  improbably,  even 
where  he  was  not  the  author,  adjusted  to  the  chansons 
which  were  his  copyright,  extempore  codas,  episodes, 
tags,  and  gags  of  difierent  kinds.  Immense  pains  have 
been  spent  upon  the  jongleur.  It  has  been  asserted,  and 
it  is  not  improbable,  tliat  during  the  palmiest  days — say 
the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries — of  the  chansons  a 
special  order  of  the  jongleur  or  minstrel  hierarchy  con- 
cerned itself  with   them, — it  is  at  least  certain  that 


52  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

the  phrase  chanter  cle  gcstc  occurs  several  times  in 
a  manner,  and  with  a  context,  which  seem  to  justify 
its  being  regarded  as  a  special  term  of  art.  And  the 
authors  at  least  present  their  heroes  as  deliberately 
expecting  that  they  will  be  sung  about,  and  fearing 
the  cliance  of  a  dishonourable  mention  ;  a  fact  which, 
though  we  must  not  base  any  calculations  upon  it  as 
to  the  actual  sentiments  of  Eoland  or  Ogier,  Eaoul  or 
Huon,  is  a  fact  in  itself.  And  it  is  also  a  fact  that  in 
the  fabliaux  and  other  light  verse  of  the  time  we  find 
jongleurs  presented  as  boasting  of  the  particular  chan- 
sons they  can  sing. 

But   the   enumeration   of   the  kinds   of  jongleurs — 
those   itinerant,  those   attached  to  courts   and   great 
jongieresses,   families,  &c. — would  lead  vis  too  far.     They 
'^''^-  were  not  all  of  one  sex,  and  we  hear  of 

jongieresses  and  chantcrcsscs,  such  as  Adeline  who 
figures  in  the  history  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  Aig- 
lantine  who  sang  before  the  Duke  of  Burgundy, 
Gracieuse  d'Espagne,  and  so  forth — pretty  names,  as 
even  M.  Gautier,  who  is  inclined  to  be  suspicious  of 
them,  admits.  These  suspicions,  it  is  fair  to  say,  were 
felt  at  the  time.  Don  Jayme  of  Aragon  forbade  noble 
ladies  to  kiss  jongieresses  or  share  bed  and  board  with 
them ;  while  the  Church,  which  never  loved  the 
jongleur  much,  decided  that  the  duty  of  a  wife  to 
follow  her  husband  ceased  if  he  took  to  jongling, 
which  was  a  vita  turpis  et  inhonesta.  Further,  the 
pains  above  referred  to,  bestowed  by  scholars  of  all 
sorts,  from  Percy  downwards,  have  discovered  or 
guessed  at   the  clothes  which   the  jongleur  and   his 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  53 

mate  wore,  and  the  instruments  with  which  they 
accompanied  their  songs.  It  is  more  germane  to  our 
purpose  to  know,  as  we  do  in  one  instance  on  positive 
testimony,  the  principles  (easily  to  be  guessed,  by  the 
way)  on  which  the  introduction  of  names  into  these 
poems  were  arranged.  It  appears,  on  the  authority  of 
the  historian  of  Guisnes  and  Ardres,  that  Arnold  the 
Old,  Count  of  Ardres,  would  actually  have  had  his 
name  in  the  Chanson  d'Antioche  had  he  not  refused 
a  pair  of  scarlet  boots  or  breeches  to  the  poet  or 
performer  thereof.  Nor  is  it  more  surprising  to  find, 
on  the  still  more  indisputable  authority  of  passages  in 
the  chansons  themselves,  that  the  jongleur  would  stop 
singing  at  an  interesting  point  to  make  a  collection, 
and  would  even  sometimes  explicitly  protest  against 
the  contribution  of  too  small  coins — 2^oitevincs,  mailles, 
and  the  like. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  regard  with  a  mixture  of 
respect  and  pity  the  labour  which  has  been  spent  on 
collecting  details  of  the  kind  whereof,  in  the  last  para- 
graph or  two,  a  few  examples  have  been  given.  But 
they  really  have  very  little,  if  anything,  to  do  with 
literature ;  and  what  they  have  to  do  with  it  is 
common  to  all  times  and  subjects.  The  excessive 
prodigality  to  minstrels  of  which  we  have  record 
parallels  itself  in  other  times  in  regard  to  actors, 
jockeys,  musicians,  and  other  classes  of  mechanical 
pleasure -makers  whose  craft  happens  to  be  popular 
for  the  moment.  And  it  was  never  more  likely  to  be 
shown  than  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  generosity  was 
a  profane  virtue  ;  when  the  Church  had  set  the  ex- 


54  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

ample — an  example  the  too  free  extension  of  which 
she  resented  highly — of  putting  reckless  giving  above 
almost  all  other  good  deeds ;  and  when  the  system 
of  private  war,  of  ransoms  and  other  things  of  the 
same  kind,  made  "  light  come,  light  go,"  a  maxim 
almost  more  applicable  than  in  the  days  of  confis- 
cations, in  those  of  pensions  on  this  or  that  list,  or  in 
those  of  stock-jobbing.  Moreover,  inquirers  into  this 
matter  have  certainly  not  escaped  the  besetting  sin 
of  all  but  strictly  political  historians — a  sin  which 
even  the  political  historian  has  not  always  avoided — 
the  sin  of  mixing  up  times  and  epochs. 

It  is  the  great  advantage  of  that  purely  literary 
criticism,  which  is  so  little  practised  and  to  some 
extent  so  unpopular,  that  it  is  able  to  preserve  accuracy 
in  this  matter.  AVhen  with  the  assistance  (always  to 
be  gratefully  received)  of  philologists  and  historians 
in  the  strict  sense  the  date  of  a  literary  work  is  ascer- 
tained with  sufficient — it  is  only  in  a  few  cases  that 
it  can  be  ascertained  with  absolute  —  exactness,  the 
historian  of  literature  places  it  in  that  position  for 
literary  purposes  only,  and  neither  mixes  it  with  other 
things  nor  endeavours  to  use  it  for  purposes  other 
than  literary.  To  recur  to  an  example  mentioned 
above,  Adeline  in  the  eleventh  century  and  Gracieuse 
d'Espagne  in  the  fifteenth  are  agreeable  objects  of  con- 
templation and  ornaments  of  discourse ;  but,  once  more, 
neither  has  much,  if  anything,  to  do  with  literature. 

We  may  therefore  with  advantage,  having  made  this 
Singularity  of  digrcssion  to  comply  a  little  with  prevalent 
tfte  ciiausoiis.  fashious,  return  to  the  chansons  themselves, 
to    the    half- million    or    million    verses    of    majestic 


CHANSONS   DE    GESTE.  55 

cadence  written  in  one  of  the  noblest  languages,  for  at 
least  first  effect,  to  be  found  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  possessing  that  character  of  distinction,  of  sepa- 
rate and  unique  peculiarity  in  matter  and  form,  which 
has  such  extraordinary  charm,  and  endowed  besides, 
more  perhaps  than  any  other  division,  with  the  attrac- 
tion of  presenting  an  utterly  vanished  Past.  The  late 
Mr  Froude  found  in  church-bells — the  echo  of  the 
Middle  Ages — suggestion  of  such  a  vanishing.  To 
some  of  us  there  is  nothing  dead  in  church  -  bells ; 
there  is  only  in  them,  as  in  the  Arthurian  legends,  for 
instance,  a  perennial  thing  still  presented  in  associa- 
tions, all  the  more  charming  for  being  slightly  antique. 
But  the  chansons  de  geste,  living  by  the  poetry  of  their 
best  examples,  by  the  fire  of  their  sentiment,  by  the 
clash  and  clang  of  their  music,  are  still  in  thought,  in 
connection  with  manners,  hopes,  aims,  almost  more 
dead  than  any  of  the  classics.  The  literary  misjudg- 
ment  of  them  which  was  possible  in  quite  recent 
times,  to  two  such  critics — very  different,  but  each  of 
the  first  class — as  Mr  Matthew  Arnold  and  M.  Fer- 
dinand Brunetifere,  is  half  excused  by  this  curious 
feature  in  their  own  literary  character.  More  than 
mummies  or  catacombs,  more  than  Herculaneum  and 
Pompeii,  they  bring  us  face  to  face  with  something 
so  remote  and  afar  that  we  can  hardly  realise  it  at  all. 
It  may  be  that  that  peculiarity  of  the  French  genius, 
which,  despite  its  unsurpassed  and  almost  unmatched 
literary  faculty,  has  prevented  it  from  contributing 
any  of  the  very  greatest  masterpieces  to  the  literature 
of  the  world,  has  communicated  to  them  this  aloofness, 
this,  as  it  may  almost  be  called,  provincialism.     But 


56  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,   1100-1300. 

some  such  note  there  is  in  them,  and  it  may  be  that  the 
immense  stretch  of  time  during  which  they  were  worse 
than  unknown — misknown — has  brought  it  about. 

Yet  their  interest  is  not  the  less ;  it  is  perhaps  even 

the  more.     It  is  nearly  twenty  years  since  I  began  to 

read  them,  and  during  that  period  I  have 

Their  charm.       ,        ,  , .  c      j  i  t  ,  j 

also  been  reading  masses  or  other  literature 
from  other  times,  nations,  and  languages  ;  yet  I  cannot 
at  this  moment  take  up  one  without  being  carried 
away  by  the  stately  language,  as  precise  and  well 
proportioned  as  modern  French,  yet  with  much  of  the 
grandeur  which  modern  French  lacks,  the  statelier 
metre,  the  noble  phrase,  the  noble  incident  and 
passion.  Take,  for  instance,  one  of  the  crowning 
moments,  for  there  are  several,  of  the  death-scene  of 
Eoland,  that  where  the  hero  discovers  the  dead  arch- 
bishop, with  his  hands — "  the  white,  the  beautiful " — 
crossed  on  liis  breast : — 

"  Li  quenz  RoUanz  revient  de  pasmeisuns, 
Sur  piez  se  drecet,  mais  il  ad  grant  dulur  ; 
Guard et  aval  e  si  guardet  amunt ; 
Sur  I'erbe  verte,  ultre  ses  cumpaiguuns, 
La  veit  gesir  le  nobile  barun : 
C'est  I'arcevesque  que  deus  mist  en  sun  num, 
Claimet  sa  culpe,  si  regardet  amunt, 
Cuntre  le  ciel  ainsdoux  ses  mains  ad  juinz, 
Si  priet  deu  que  pareis  li  duinst. 
Morz  est  Turpin  le  guerrier  Charlun. 
Par  granz  batailles  e  par  mult  bels  sermuns 
Centre  paiens  fut  tuz  tens  campiuns. 
Deus  li  otreit  seinte  beneigun. 
Aoi ! "  1 


1  Roland,  11.  2233-2246. 


CHANSONS   DE    GESTE.  57 

Then  turn  to,  perhaps,  the  very  last  poem  which  can 
be  called  a  chanson  de  gcstc  proper  in  style,  Le  Bastart 
de  Bouillon,  and  open  on  these  lines  : — • 

"  Pardevant  la  chite  qui  Miekes  ^  fut  clamee 
Fu  grande  la  bataille,  et  fiere  la  mellee, 
Enchois  car  on  eust  nulle  tente  levee, 
Commencha  li  debas  a  chelle  matinee. 
Li  cine  frere  paien  i  mainent  grant  hnee, 
II  keurent  par  accort,  chascuns  tenoit  I'espee, 
Et  una  forte  targe  a  son  col  acolee. 
Esclamars  va  ferir  sans  nulle  demoree, 
Un  gentil  crestien  de  France  I'onneree — 
Armeire  n'i  vault  une  pomme  pek'e  ; 
Sus  le  senestre  espaulle  fu  la  chars  atamee, 
Le  branc  li  embati  par  dedans  la  coree,^ 
Mort  I'abat  du  cheval ;  son  ame  soit  sauvee  ! "  ^ 

This  is  in  no  way  a  specially  fine  passage,  it  is  the 
very  "  padding  "  of  the  average  chanson,  but  what  pad- 
ding it  is !  Compare  the  mere  sound,  the  clash  and 
clang  of  the  verse,  with  the  ordinary  English  romance 
in  Si?'  Thopas  metre,  or  even  with  the  Italian  poets. 
How  alert,  how  succinct,  how  finished  it  is  beside  the 
slip-shodness  of  the  first,  in  too  many  instances  ;  *  how 
manly,  how  intense,  beside  the  mere  sweetness  of  the 
second !  The  very  ring  of  the  lines  brings  mail-shirt 
and  flat-topped  helmet  before  us. 

But  in  order  to  the  proper  comprehension  of  this 

^  I.e.,  Mecca. 

2  Coree  is  not  merely  =  caijr,  but  heart,  hver,  and  all  the  upper 
"inwards." 

"*  Li  Bastars  de  Bouillon  (ed.  Scheler,  Brussels,  1877). 

■*  Not  always  ;  for  the  English  romance  of  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries  has  on  the  whole  been  too  harshly  dealt  with. 
But  its  average  is  far  below  that  of  the  chansons. 


58  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

section  of  literature,  it  is  necessary  that  something 
Peculiarity  of  more  shoulcl  be  saicl  as  well  of  the  matter 
the  geste  system,  ^t  large  as  of  the  constrviction  and  contents 
of  separate  poems ;  and,  most  of  all,  of  the  singular 
process  of  adjustment  of  these  separate  poems  by 
which  the  geste  proper  (that  is  to  say,  the  subdivision 
of  the  whole  which  deals  more  or  less  distinctly  with 
a  single  subject)  is  constituted.  Here  again  we  find 
a  "  difference  "  of  the  poems  in  the  strict  logical  sense. 
The  total  mass  of  the  Arthurian  story  may  be,  though 
more  probably  it  is  not,  as  large  as  that  of  the  Charle- 
magne romances,  and  it  may  well  seem  to  some  of 
superior  literary  interest.  But  from  its  very  nature, 
perhaps  from  the  very  nature  of  its  excellence,  it 
lacks  this  special  feature  of  the  chansons  de  geste. 
Arthur  may  or  may  not  be  a  greater  figure  in  himself 
than  Charlemagne ;  but  when  the  genius  of  Map  (or  of 
some  one  else)  had  hit  upon  the  real  knotting  and 
unknotting  of  the  story — the  connection  of  the  frailty 
of  Guinevere  with  the  Quest  for  the  Grail — complete 
developments  of  the  fates  of  minor  heroes,  elaborate 
closings  of  minor  incidents,  became  futile.  Endless 
stories  could  be  keyed  or  geared  on  to  different  parts 
of  the  main  legend :  there  might  be  a  Tristan-saga,  a 
Palomides-saga,  a  Gawain-saga,  episodes  of  Balin  or  of 
Beaumains,  incidents  of  the  fate  of  the  damsel  of 
Astolat  or  the  resipiscence  of  Geraint.  But  the  central 
interest  was  too  artistically  complete  to  allow  any  of 
these  to  occupy  very  much  independent  space. 

In  our   present  subject,  on  the  other  hand,  even 
Charlemagne's  life  is  less  the  object  of  the  story  than 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  59 

the  history  of  France  ;  and  enormous  as  the  falsification 
of  that  history  may  seem  to  modern  criti- 

Instanccs.  .  ,  .  ,  . 

cism,  the  writers  always  m  a  certani  sense 
remembered  that  they  were  historians.  When  an  in- 
teresting and  important  personality  presented  itself,  it 
was  their  duty  to  follow  it  out  to  the  end,  to  fill  up 
the  gaps  of  forerunners,  to  round  it  off  and  shade  it  in.^ 
Thus  it  happens  that  the  geste  or  saga  of  Ouillaume 
d'Oranrjc — which  is  itself  not  the  whole  of  the  great 
gcste  of  Garin  de  Montglane  —  occupies  eighteen 
separate  poems,  some  of  them  of  great  length  ;  that 
the  crusading  series,  beginning  no  doubt  in  a  simple 
historical  poem,  which  was  extended  and  "  cycled," 
has  seven,  the  Lorraine  group  five  ;  while  in  the  extra- 
ordinary monument  of  industry  and  enthusiasm  which 
for  some  eight  hundred  pages  M.  Leon  Gautier  has  de- 
voted to  the  king's  gcste,  twenty-seven  different  chan- 
sons are  more  or  less  abstracted.  Several  others  might 
have  been  added  here  if  M.  Gautier  had  laid  down 
less  strict  rules  of  exclusion  against  mere  romcms 
cVavcntttrcs  subsequently  tied  on,  like  the  above-men- 
tioned outlying  romances  of  the  Arthurian  group,  to 
the  main  subject. 

It  seems  necessary,  therefore,  or  at  least  desirable, 

especially  as  these  poems  are  still  far  too 

Summary  of  the     _  "'  •"■      _ 

gesteo/jruziam  little  kuowu   to   EugUsh   readers,  to  give 

ranrje.         .^^  ^j^^  ^^^^  placc  a  uiorc  or  less  detailed 

account  of  one  of  the  groups ;  in  the  second,  a  still 

1  This  will  explain  the  frequent  recurrence  of  the  title  "  Enfances 

"  in  the  list  given  above.      A  hero  had  become  interesting  in 

some  exploit  of  his  manhood  :  so  they  harked  back  to  his  childhood. 


60  EUROPEAX    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

more  detailed  accoimt  of  a  particular  chanson,  which 
to  be  fully  illustrative  should  probably  be  a  member 
of  this  group ;  and  lastly,  some  remarks  on  the  more 
noteworthy  and  accessible  (for  it  is  ill  speaking  at 
second  -  hand  from  accounts  of  manuscripts)  of  the 
remaining  poems.  For  the  first  purpose  nothing  can 
be  better  than  Cruillaume  d'Orange,  many,  though  not 
all,  of  the  constituents  of  which  are  in  print,  and  which 
has  had  the  great  advantage  of  being  systematically 
treated  by  more  than  one  or  two  of  the  most  com- 
petent scholars  of  the  century  on  the  subject — Dr 
Jonckbloet,  MM.  Guessard  and  A.  de  Montaiglon,  and 
M.  Gautier  himself.  Of  this  group  the  short,  very 
old,  and  very  characteristic  Couronnement  Loys  will 
supply  a  good  subject  for  more  particular  treatment,  a 
subject  all  the  more  desirable  that  Roland  may  be 
said  to  be  comparatively  familiar,  and  is  accessible  in 
English  translations. 

The  poem    as   we  have  it  ^   begins   with  a  double 

exordium,  from  which  the  jongleur  might  perhaps  choose 

as  from  alternative  collects  in  a   liturgy. 

And  first  of  the       ^  .  .  °'' 

Couronnement  Eacli  is  tcu  lincs  long,  and  while  the  first 
"^'^'  rhymes  throughout,  the  second  has  only  a 

very  imperfect  assonance.  Each  bespeaks  attention 
and  promises  satisfaction  in  the  usual  manner,  though 
in  different  terms — 

"  Oez  seignor  que  Dex  vos  soit  aidant ; " 

"  Seignor  baron,  pleroit  vos  d'un  example  !  " 

A  much  less  commonplace  note  is  struck  immediately 

^  Ed.  Jonckbloet,  op.  cit.,  i.  1-71. 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  61 

afterwards  in  what  may  be  excusably  taken  to  be  the 
real  beginning  of  the  poem  : — 

"  A  king  who  wears  our  France's  crown  of  gold 
Worthy  must  be,  and  of  his  body  bold  ; 
What  man  soe'er  to  him  do  evil  wold, 
He  may  not  quit  in  any  manner  hold 
Till  he  be  dead  or  to  his  mercy  yold. 
Else  France  shall  lose  her  praise  she  hath  of  old. 
Falsely  he's  crowned  :  so  hath  our  story  told." 

Then  the  story  itself  is  plunged  into  in  right  style. 
When  the  chapel  was  blessed  at  Aix  and  the  minster 
dedicated  and  made,  there  was  a  mighty  court  held. 
Poor  and  rich  received  justice  ;  eighteen  bishops,  as 
many  archbishops,  twenty-six  abbots,  and  four  crowned 
kings  attended ;  the  Pope  of  Eome  himself  said  mass ; 
and  Louis,  son  of  Charlemagne,  was  brought  up  to  the 
liigh  altar  where  the  crown  was  laid.  At  this  mo- 
ment the  people  are  informed  that  Charles  feels  his 
death  approaching,  and  must  hand  over  his  kingdom 
to  his  son.  They  thank  God  that  no  strange  king  is 
to  come  on  them.  But  when  the  emperor,  after  good 
advice  as  to  life  and  policy,  bids  him  not  dare  to  take 
the  crown  unless  he  is  prepared  for  a  clean  and  valiant 
life,  the  infant  {li  cnfcs)  does  not  dare.  The  people 
weep,  and  the  king  storms,  declaring  that  the  prince 
is  no  son  of  his  and  shall  be  made  a  monk.  But 
Hernaut  of  Orleans,  a  great  noble,  strikes  in,  and  pre- 
tending to  plead  for  Louis  on  the  score  of  his  extreme 
youth,  offers  to  take  the  regency  for  three  years,  when, 
if  the  prince  has  become  a  good  knight,  he  shall  have 
the  kingdom  back,  and  in  increased  good  condition. 


62  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

Charlemagne,  with  the  singular  proneness  to  be  victim 
of  any  kind  of  "  confidence  trick "  which  he  shows 
throughout  the  chansons,  is  turning  a  willing  ear  to  this 
proposition  when  William  of  Orange  enters,  and,  wroth 
at  the  notion,  thinks  of  striking  off  Hernaut's  head. 
But  remembering 

"  Que  d'ome  occire  est  trop  mortex  pechi(5s," 

he  changes  his  plan  and  only  pummels  him  to  death 
with  his  fists,  a  distinction  which  seems  indifferential. 
Then  he  takes  the  crown  himself,  places  it  on  the 
boy's  head,  and  Charles  accommodates  himself  to  this 
proceeding  as  easily  as  to  the  other  proposal. 

Five  years  pass  :  and  it  is  a  question,  not  of  the 
mere  choice  of  a  successor  or  assessor,  but  of  actual 
death.  He  repeats  his  counsels  to  his  son,  with  the 
additional  and  very  natural  warning  to  rely  on 
William.  Unluckily  this  chief,  who  is  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  chanson  surnamed  Firebrace  (not  to  be 
confounded  with  the  converted  Saracen  of  that  name), 
is  not  at  the  actual  time  of  the  king's  death  at  Aix, 
but  has  gone  on  pilgrimage,  in  fulfilment  of  a  vow,  to 
Rome.  He  comes  at  a  good  time,  for  the  Saracens 
have  just  invaded  Italy,  have  overthrown  the  King  of 
Apulia  with  great  slaughter,  and  are  close  to  Eome. 
The  Pope  (the  "  Apostle ")  hears  of  William,  and 
implores  his  succour,  which,  though  he  has  but  forty 
knights  and  the  Saracens  are  in  their  usual  tliousands, 
he  consents  to  give.  The  Pope  promises  him  as  a 
reward  that  he  may  eat  meat  all  the  days  of  his  life, 
and  take  as  njany  wives  as  he  chooses, — a  method  of 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  63 

guerdon  which  shocks  M.  Gautier,  the  most  orthodox 
as  well  as  not  the  least  scholarly  of  scholars.  How- 
ever, the  Holy  Father  also  wishes  to  buy  off  the 
heathen,  thereby  showing  a  truly  apostolic  ignorance 
of  the  world.  Galafre,  the  "admiral,"  however  has 
a  point  of  honour.  He  will  not  be  bought  off.  He 
informs  the  Pope,  calling  him  "  Sir  with  the  big 
hat,"  ^  that  he  is  a  descendant  of  Eomulus  and  Julius 
Ccesar,  and  for  that  reason  feels  it  necessary  to  destroy 
Rome  and  its  clerks  who  serve  God.  He  relents, 
however,  so  far  as  to  propose  to  decide  the  matter  by 
single  combat,  to  which  the  Pope,  according  to  all  but 
nineteenth  century  sentiment,  very  properly  consents. 
William  is,  of  course,  the  Christian  champion  ;  the 
Saracen  is  a  giant  named  Corsolt,  very  hideous,  very 
violent,  and  a  sort  of  Mahometan  Capaneus  in  his 
language.  The  Pope  does  not  entirely  trust  in 
William's  valour,  but  rubs  him  all  over  with  St 
Peter's  arm,  which  confers  invulnerability.  Unfor- 
tunately the  "  promontory  of  the  face "  is  omitted. 
The  battle  is  fierce,  but  not  long.  Corsolt  cuts  off 
the  uncharmed  tip  of  William's  nose  (whence  liis 
epic  surname  of  Guillaume  au  Court  Xez),  but  William 
cuts  off  Corsolt's  head.  The  Saracens  fly :  William 
(he  has  joked  rather  ruefully  with  the  Pope  on  his 
misadventure,  which,  as  being  a  recognised  form  of 
punishment,  was  almost  a  disgrace  even  when  honour- 
ably incurred)  pursues  them,  captures  Galafre,  con- 
verts him  at  point  of  sword,  and  receives  from  him 
the  offer  of  his  beautiful  daughter.     The  marriage  is 

^  "Parlez  h,  moi,  sire  au  chaperon  large." — C.L.,  1.  468. 


64  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

about  to  be  celebrated,  William  and  the  Saracen 
princess  are  actually  at  the  altar,  when  a  messenger 
from  Louis  arrives  claiming  the  champion's  help 
against  the  traitors  who  already  wish  to  wrest  the 
sceptre  from  his  hand.  William  asks  the  Pope  what 
he  is  to  do,  and  the  Pope  says  "  Go " : 

"  Guillaumes  bese  la  dame  o  le  vis  cler, 
Et  ele  lui  ;  ne  cesse  deplorer. 
Par  tel  covent  ensi  sont  dessevre, 
Puis  ne  se  virent  en  trestot  leur  ae." 

Promptly  as  he  acts,  however,  he  is  only  in  time  to 
repair,  not  to  prevent,  the  mischief.  The  rebels  have 
already  dethroned  Louis  and  imprisoned  him  at  St 
Martins  in  Tours,  making  Acelin  of  Eouen,  son  of 
Eichard,  Emperor.  William  makes  straight  for  Tours, 
prevails  on  the  castellan  of  the  gate  -  fortress  to  let 
him  in,  kicks  —  literally  kicks  —  the  monks  out  of 
their  abbey,  and  rescues  Louis.  He  then  kills  Acelin, 
violently  maltreats  his  father,  and  rapidly  traverses 
the  whole  of  France,  reducing  the  malcontents. 

Peace  having  been  for  the  time  restored  at  home, 
William  returns  to  Rome,  where  many  things  have 
happened.  The  Pope  and  Galafre  are  dead,  the 
princess,  though  she  is  faithful  to  William,  has  other 
suitors,  and  there  is  a  fresh  invasion,  not  this  time 
of  heathen  Asiatics,  but  led  by  Guy  of  Germany.  The 
Count  of  Orange  forces  Louis  (who  behaves  in  a 
manner  justifying  the  rebels)  to  accompany  him  with 
a  great  army  to  Piome,  defeats  the  Germans,  takes  his 
faineant  emperor's  part  in  a  single  combat  with 
Guy,  and  is  again  victorious.      Xor,  though  he  has 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  65 

to  treat  his  pusillanimous  sovereign  in  an  exceedingly 
cavalier  fashion,  does  he  fail  to  have  Louis  crowned 
again  as  Emperor  of  Eome.  A  fresh  rebellion 
breaking  out  in  France,  he  again  subdues  it ;  and 
strengthens  the  tottering  house  of  Charles  Martel  by 
giving  his  own  sister  Blanchelieur  to  the  chicken- 
hearted  king. 

"  En  grant  barnage  f  u  Looys  entrez  ; 
Quant  il  fu  riche,  Guillaume  n'en  sot  gre," 

ends  the  poem  with  its  usual  laconism. 

There  is,  of  course,  in  this  story  an  element  of 
rough  comedy,  approaching  horse  -  play,  which  may 
Comments  071  the  ^(^^  plcase  all  tastes.  This  element,  how- 
couronnement.  ever,  is  vcry  largely  present  in  the  chan- 
sons (though  it  so  happens,  yet  once  more,  that  Roland 
is  accidentally  free  from  it),  and  it  is  especially  ob- 
vious in  the  particular  branch  or  gcste  of  "William 
with  the  Short  Nose,  appearing  even  in  the  finest  and 
longest  of  the  subdivisions,  Aliscans,  which  some  have 
put  at  the  head  of  the  whole.  In  fact,  as  we  might 
expect,  the  esjjrit  gaulois  can  seldom  refrain  altogether 
from  pleasantry,  and  its  pleasantry  at  this  time  is 
distinctly  "the  humour  of  the  stick."  But  still  the 
poem  is  a  very  fine  one.  Its  ethical  opening  is  really 
noble :  the  picture  of  the  Court  at  Aix  has  grandeur, 
for  all  its  touches  of  simplicity  ;  the  fighting  is  good ; 
the  marriage  scene  and  its  fatal  interruption  (for  we 
hear  nothing  of  the  princess  on  William's  second  visit 
to  Eome)  give  a  dramatic  turn  :  and  though  there  is 
no  fine  writing,  there  is  a  refreshing  directness.     The 


66  EUROPEAN    LITEEATUKE,    1100-1300. 

shortness,  too  (it  has  less  than  three  thousand  lines), 
is  undoubtedly  in  its  favour,  for  these  pieces  are  apt 
to  be  rather  too  long  than  too  short.  And  if  the 
pusillanimity  and  faindantisc  of  Louis  seem  at  first 
sight  exaggerated,  it  must  be  remembered  that,  very 
awkward  as  was  the  position  of  a  Henry  III.  of 
England  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  a  James  III. 
of  Scotland  in  the  fifteenth,  kings  of  similar  character 
must  have  cut  even  worse  figures  in  the  tenth  or 
eleventh,  when  the  story  was  probably  first  elaborated, 
and  worse  still  in  the  days  of  the  supposed  occurrence 
of  its  facts.  Indeed,  one  of  the  best  passages  as 
poetry,  and  one  of  the  most  valuable  as  matter,  is  that 
in  which  the  old  king  warns  his  trembling  son  how  he 
must  not  only  do  judgment  and  justice,  must  not  only 
avoid  luxury  and  avarice,  protect  the  orphan  and  do 
the  widow  no  wrong,  but  must  be  ready  at  any  mo- 
ment to  cross  the  water  of  Gironde  with  a  hundred 
thousand  men  in  order  to  cravcnter  ct  confondrc  the 
pagan  host,  —  how  he  must  be  towards  his  own 
proud  vassals  "  like  a  man  -  eating  leopard,"  and  if 
any  dare  levy  war  against  him,  must  summon  his 
knights,  besiege  the  traitor's  castle,  waste  and  spoil 
all  his  land,  and  when  he  is  taken  show  him  no 
mercy,  but  lop  him  limb  from  limb,  burn  him  in  fire, 
or  drown  him  in  the  sea.^  It  is  not  precisely  an 
amiable  spirit,  this  spirit  of  the  chansons :  but  there 
is  this  to  be  said  in  its  favour,  there  is  no  mistake 
about  it. 

It  may  be   perhaps  expected   that    before,  in  the 

1  C.L..  11.  72-79.  172-196. 


CHANSONS    DE   GESTE.  67 

second  place,  summing  the  other  branches  of  the 
William  of  saga  of  this  William  of  Orange,  it  should 
oraiuje,  \^q  g^j(]^  ^y|^Q  \^q  ^yas,  But  it  Is  better  to 
refer  to  the  authorities  already  given  on  this,  after  all, 
not  strictly  literary  point.  Enormous  pains  have  been 
spent  on  the  identification  or  distinction  of  William 
Short-nose,  Saint  William  of  Gellona,  William  Tow- 
head  of  Poitiers,  William  Longsword  of  Normandy, 
as  well  as  several  other  Williams.  It  may  not  be 
superfluous,  and  is  certainly  not  improper,  for  those 
who  undertake  the  elaborate  editing  of  a  particular 
poem  to  enter  into  such  details.  But  for  us,  who  are 
considering  the  literary  development  of  Europe,  it 
would  be  scarcely  germane.  It  is  enough  that  cer- 
tain trouvdres  found  in  tradition,  in  history  freely 
treated,  or  in  their  own  imaginations,  the  material 
which  they  worked  into  this  great  series  of  poems, 
of  which  those  concerning  William  directly  amount 
to  eighteen,  while  the  entire  geste  of  Garin  de  Mont- 
glane  runs  to  twenty-four. 

For  the  purposes   of  the  chansons,  William  of  the 
Strong  Arm  or  the  Short  Nose    is  Count,  or  rather 
Marquis,  of  Orange,  one  of  Charlemagne's 
poevisofthe       pccrs,    a    Special    bulwark   of  France  and 
''^'^^"  Clnistendom  towards   the   south-east,  and 

a  man  of  approved  valour,  loyalty,  and  piety,  but  of 
somewhat  rough  manners.  Also  (which  is  for  the 
chanson  de  geste  of  even  greater  importance)  he  is 
grandson  of  Garin  de  Montglane  and  the  son  of 
Aimeri  de  ISTarbonne,  heroes  both,  and  possessors  of 
the    same   good    qualities    which   extend    to   all    the 


68  EUROPEAN    LITEKATUKE,    1 100-1300. 

family.  For  it  is  a  cardinal  point  of  the  chansons 
that  not  only  hon  sang  chasse  de  race,  but  evil  blood 
likewise.  And  the  House  of  Narbonne,  or  Montglane, 
or  Orange,  is  as  uniformly  distinguished  for  loyalty 
as  the  Normans  and  part  of  the  house  of  Mayence 
for  "  treachery/'  To  illustrate  its  qualities,  twenty- 
four  chansons,  as  has  been  said,  are  devoted,  six  of 
which  tell  the  story  before  William,  and  the  re- 
mainino-  eighteen  that  of  his  life.  The  first  in  M. 
Gautier's  order  ^  is  Lcs  Enfanccs  Gar  in  de  Montglane. 
Garin  de  Montglane,  the  son  of  Duke  Savary  of 
Aquitaine  and  a  mother  persecuted  by  false  accusa- 
tions, like  so  many  heroines  of  the  middle  ages,  fights 
first  in  Sicily,  procures  atonement  for  his  mother's 
wrongs,  and  then  goes  to  the  Court  of  Charlemagne, 
who,  according  to  the  general  story,  is  his  exact  equal 
in  age,  as  is  also  Doon  de  Mayence,  the  special  hero 
of  the  third  great  geste.  He  conquers  Montglane,  and 
marries  the  Lady  Mabille,  his  marriage  and  its  pre- 
liminaries filling  the  second  romance,  or  Garin  de 
Montglane  proper.  He  has  by  Mabille  four  sons — 
Hernaut  de  Beaulande,  Girart  de  Viane,  Renier  de 
Gennes,  and  Milles  de  Pouille.  Each  of  the  three 
first  is  the  subject  of  an  existing  chanson,  and 
doubtless  the  fourth  was  similarly  honoured.  Girart 
de  Viane  is  one  of  the  most  striking  of  the  chansons 
in  matter.  The  hero  quarrels  with  Charlemagne 
owing  to  the  bad  offices  of  the  empress,  and  a  great 
barons'  war  follows,  in  which  Eoland  and  Oliver  have 

^  M.  Jonckblolit,  who  takes  a  less  wide  range,  begins  his  selection 
or  collection  of  the  William  saga  with  the  Couroniicmcnt  Loys. 


CHANSONS   DE   OESTE.  69 

their  famous  fight,  and  Eoland  is  betrothed  to  Oliver's 
sister  Aude.  Hernaut  de  Beaulande  tells  how  the 
hero  conquers  Aquitaine,  marries  Fregonde,  and  be- 
comes the  father  of  Aimeri  de  ]S"arbonne ;  and  Renier 
de  Gennes  in  like  fashion  the  success  of  its  eponym 
at  Genoa,  and  his  becoming  the  father  of  Oliver  and 
Aude.  Then  we  pass  to  the  third  generation  (Charle- 
magne reigning  all  the  time)  with  the  above-named 
Aimeri  de  Narhonne.  The  events  of  this  come  after 
Eoncesvalles,  and  it  is  on  the  return  thence  that, 
Narbonne  being  in  Paynim  hands,  Aimeri,  after  others 
have  refused,  takes  the  adventure,  the  town,  and  his 
surname.  He  marries  Hermengart,  sister  of  the  king 
of  the  Lombards,  repulses  the  Saracens,  who  endeavour 
to  recover  ]S!"arbonne,  and  begets  twelve  children,  of 
whom  the  future  William  of  Orange  is  one.  These 
chansons,  with  the  exception  of  Girart  de  Viane,  which 
was  printed  early,  remained  much  longer  in  MS. 
than  their  successors,  and  the  texts  are  not  acces- 
sible in  any  such  convenient  corpus  as  De  Jonckbloijt's 
though  some  have  been  edited  recently. 

Three  poems  intervene  between  Aimeri  de  Narhonne 
and  the  Couronnement  Loys,  but  they  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  always  kept  apart.  The  first,  the  Enfances 
Guillcmme,  tells  how  when  William  himself  had  left 
Narbonne  for  Charlemagne's  Court,  and  his  father  was 
also  absent,  the  Saracens  under  Thibaut,  King  of  Arabia, 
laid  siege  to  the  town,  laying  at  the  same  time  siege  to 
the  heart  of  the  beautiful  Saracen  Princess  Orable,  who 
lives  in  the  enchanted  palace  of  Gloriette  at  Orange, 
itself  then,  as  Narbonne  had  been,  a  pagan  possession. 


70  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

William,  going  with  his  brothers  to  succour  their 
mother,  captures  Baucent,  a  horse  sent  by  the  princess 
to  Thibaut,  and  falls  in  love  with  her,  his  love  being 
returned.  She  is  forced  to  marry  Thibaut,  but  pre- 
serves herself  by  witchcraft  as  a  wife  only  in  name. 
Orange  does  not  fall  into  the  hand  of  the  Christians, 
though  they  succeed  in  relieving  Narbonne.  William 
meanwhile  has  returned  to  Court,  and  has  been 
solemnly  dubbed  knight,  his  enfances  then  technically 
ceasing. 

This  is  followed  by  the  Departcment  dcs  Unfans 
Aimeri,  in  which  William's  brothers,  following  his 
example,  leave  Narbonne  and  their  father  for  different 
parts  of  France,  and  achieve  adventures  and  posses- 
sions. One  of  them,  Bernart  of  Brabant,  is  often 
specially  mentioned  in  the  latter  branches  of  the  cycle 
as  the  most  valiant  of  the  clan  next  to  Guillaume, 
and  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  had  a  chanson  to 
himself.  The  youngest,  Guibelin,  remains,  and  in  the 
third  Siege  of  Narbonne,  which  has  a  poem  to  itself, 
he  shows  prowess  against  the  Saracens,  but  is  taken 
prisoner.  He  is  rescued  from  crucifixion  by  his  aged 
father,  who  cuts  his  way  througli  the  Saracens  and 
carries  off  his  son.  But  the  number  of  the  heathen  is 
too  great,  and  the  city  must  have  surrendered  if  an 
embassy  sent  to  Charlemagne  had  not  brought  help, 
headed  by  William  himself,  in  time.  He  is  as 
victorious  as  usual,  but  after  hLs  victory  again  returns 
to  Aix. 

Now  begins  the  Couronnement  Loys,  of  which  the 
more  detailed  abstract  given  above  may  serve,  not 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  71 

merely  to  make  the  individual  piece  known,  but  to 
indicate  the  general  course,  incidents,  language,  and 
so  forth  of  all  these  poems.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  it  ends  by  a  declaration  that  the  king  was  not 
grateful  to  the  King-maker.  He  forgets  William  in 
the  distribution  of  fiefs,  says  M.  Gautier ;  we  may 
say,  perhaps,  that  he  remembers  rather  too  vividly 
the  rough  instruction  he  has  received  from  his 
brother-in-law.  On  protest  William  receives  Spain, 
Orange,  and  Nimes,  a  sufficiently  magnificent  dotation, 
were  it  not  that  all  three  are  in  the  power  of  the 
infidels.  William,  however,  loses  no  time  in  putting 
himself  in  possession,  and  begins  with  Nimes.  This 
The  charroi  ^6  carrics,  as  told  in  the  Charroi  de  Nimes} 
de  Nimes.  j^^  ^j^g  Douglas-Hkc  Stratagem  (indeed  it  is 
not  at  all  impossible  that  the  Good  Lord  James  was 
acquainted  with  the  poem)  of  hiding  his  knights  in 
casks,  supposed  to  contain  salt  and  other  merchandise, 
which  are  piled  on  cars  and  drawn  by  oxen.  William 
himself  and  Bertrand  his  nephew  conduct  the  caravan, 
dressed  in  rough  boots  (which  hurt  Bertrand's  feet), 
blue  hose,  and  coarse  cloth  frocks.  The  innocent 
paynims  give  them  friendly  welcome,  though  William 
is  nearly  discovered  by  his  tell-tale  disfigurement. 
A  squabble,  however,  arises ;  but  William,  having 
effected  his  entrance,  does  not  lose  time.  He  blow^s  his 
horn,  and  the  knights  springing  from  their  casks,  the 
town  is  taken.  This  Charroi  de  Nimes  is  one  of  the 
most  spirited,  but  one  of  the  roughest,  of  the  group. 
The  catalogue  of   his  services    with    which   William 

1  Jonckbloet.  i.  73-111. 


72  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

overwhelms  the  king,  each  item  ushered  by  the  phrase 
"Eois,  quar  te  membre  "  ("  King,  bethink  thee  then"), 
and  to  which  the  unfortunate  Louis  can  only  answer  in 
various  forms,  "  You  are  very  ill-tempered"  ("  Pleins 
es  de  mautalent " ;  "  Mautalent  avez  moult "),  is  curi- 
ously full  of  uncultivated  eloquence  ;  while  his  refusal 
to  accept  the  heritage  of  Auberi  le  Bourgoing,  and 
thereby  wrong  Auberi's  little  son,  even  though  "  sa 
marrastre  Hermengant  de  Tori "  is  also  offered  by  the 
generous  monarch  with  the  odd  commendation — 

"  La  meiller  feme  qui  one  beust  de  vin," 

is  justly  praised.  But  when  the  venerable  Aymon 
not  unnaturally  protests  against  almost  the  whole 
army  accompanying  William,  and  the  wrathful  peer 
breaks  his  jaw  with  his  fist,  when  the  peasants  who 
grumble  at  their  casks  and  their  oxen  being  seized 
are  hanged  or  have  their  eyes  put  out — then  the 
less  amiable  side  of  the  matter  certainly  makes  its 
appearance. 

William  has  thus  entered  on  part,  though  the  least 
part,  of  the  king's  gift  to  him — a  gift  which  it  is  fair 
TAe  Prise     to  Louis  to  Say  that  the  hero  had  himself 
a  Orange,     clemauded,  after  refusing  the  rather  vague 
offer  of  a  fourth  of  the  lands  and  revenues  of  all 
France.     The  Prise  cV Orange'^  follows  in  time  and  as 
a  subject   of  chanson,   the    Charroi   de  Nhnes.     The 
earlier  poem   had   been   all   sheer   fighting  with   no 
softer  side.     In  this  William  is  reminded  of  the  beau- 
tiful Orable  (wife,  if  only  in  name,  of  King  Thibaut), 
^  Jonckbloet,  i.  112-162. 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE,  73 

who  lives  there,  though  her  husband,  finding  a  wife 
who  bewitches  the  nuptial  chamber  unsatisfactory, 
has  left  her  and  Orange  to  the  care  of  his  son  Arragon. 
The  reminder  is  a  certain  Gilbert  of  Vermandois  who 
has  been  prisoner  at  Orange,  and  who,  after  some 
hesitation,  joins  William  himself  and  his  brother 
Guibelin  in  a  hazardous  expedition  to  the  pagan 
city.  They  blacken  themselves  with  ink,  and  are  not 
ill  received  by  Arragon:  but  a  Saracen  who  knows 
the  "  Marquis  au  Court  Nez "  informs  against  him 
(getting  his  brains  beaten  out  for  his  pains),  and  the 
three,  forcing  a  way  with  bludgeons  through  the 
heathen,  take  refuge  in  Gloriette,  receive  arms  from 
Orable,  who  has  never  ceased  to  love  the  Marquis, 
and  drive  their  enemies  off.  But  a  subterranean  pas- 
sage (this  probably  shows  the  chanson  to  be  a  late  one 
in  this  form)  lets  the  heathen  in  :  and  all  three  cham- 
pions are  seized,  bound,  and  condemned  to  the  flames, 
Orable  demands  them,  not  to  release  but  to  put  in  her 
own  dungeons,  conveniently  furnished  with  vipers ; 
and  for  a  time  they  think  themselves  betrayed.  But 
Orable  soon  appears,  offers  them  liberty  if  William 
will  marry  her,  and  discloses  a  second  underground 
passage.  They  do  not,  however,  fly  by  this,  but  only 
send  Gilbert  to  Nimes  to  fetch  succour:  and  as 
Orable's  conduct  is  revealed  to  Arragon,  a  third  crisis 
occurs.  It  is  happily  averted,  and  Bertrand  soon 
arriving  with  thirteen  thousand  men  from  Nimes,  the 
Saracens  are  cut  to  pieces  and  Orange  won.  Orable 
is  quickly  baptised,  her  name  being  changed  to  Gui- 
bourc,  and  married  without  further  delay.     William 


74  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

is  William  of  Orange  at  length  in  good  earnest,  and 
the  double  sacrament  reconciles  M.  Gautier  (who  is 
constantly  distressed  by  the  forward  conduct  of  his 
heroines)  to  Guibourc  ever  afterwards.  It  is  only 
fair  to  say  that  in  the  text  published  by  ]\I.  Jonck- 
bloet  (and  M.  Gautier  gives  references  to  no  other) 
"  la  curtoise  Orable "  does  not  seem  to  deserve  his 
hard  words.  There  is  nothing  improper  in  her  con- 
duct, and  her  words  do  not  come  to  much  more  than — 

"  I  am  your  wife  if  you  will  marry  me.'' 
La  Prise  d' Orange  ends  with  the  couplet — 

"  Puis  estut  il  tiex  xxx  aus  en  Orenge 
Mes  ainc  un  jor  ii'i  estut  sanz  chalenge." 

Orange,  in  short,  was  a  kind  of  Garde  Douloureuse 
against  the  infidel :  and  William  well  earned  his  title 
The  story  of  of  "  Marchis."  The  story  of  his  exploits 
Vivien  diverges  a  little  —  a  loop  rather  than  an 
episode — in  two  specially  heroic  chansons,  the  Enfances 
Vivien  and  the  Covenant  Vivien}  which  tell  the  story 
of  one  of  his  nephews,  a  story  finished  by  Vivien's 
glorious  death  at  the  opening  of  the  great  chanson 
of  Aliscans,  Vivien  is  the  son  of  Garin  d'Ansene, 
one  of  those  "  children  of  Aimeri "  who  have  sought 
fortune  away  from  Xarbonne,  and  one  of  the  captives 
of  Eoncesvalles.  Garin  is  only  to  be  delivered  at  the 
cost  of  his  son's  life,  which  Vivien  cheerfully  offers. 
He  is  actually  on  the  pyre,  which  is  kindled,  when  the 
pagan  hold  Luiserne  is  stormed  by  a  pirate  king,  and 

^   Enfances    Vivien,    ed.  AVahlen    and    v.    P^eilitzer,    Paris,    1886: 
Covenant  Vivien,  Jonckbloet,    i.    163-213. 


CHANSONS   DE    GESTE.  75 

Vivien  is  rescued,  but  sold  as  a  slave.  An  amiable 
paynim  woman  buys  him  and  adopts  him ;  but  he 
is  a  born  knight,  and  wlien  grown  up,  with  a  few 
allies  surprises  Luiserne  itself,  and  holds  it  till  a 
French  army  arrives,  and  Gariu  recovers  his  son, 
whom  he  had  thought  dead.  After  these  Enfances, 
promising  enough,  comes  the  Covenant  or  vow,  never 
to  retreat  before  the  Saracens.  Vivien  is  as  savage 
as  he  is  heroic ;  and  on  one  occasion  sends  five 
hundred  prisoners,  miserably  mutilated,  to  the  great 
Admiral  Desrame.  The  admiral  assembles  all  the 
forces  of  the  East  as  well  as  of  Spain,  and  invades 
France.  Vivien,  overpowered  by  numbers,  applies  to 
his  uncle  "William  for  help,  and  the  battle  of  Aliscans 
is  already  half  fought  and  more  than  half  lost  before 
the  actual  chanson  of  the  name  begins.  Aliscans'^  it- 
self opens  with  a  triplet  in  which  the  "  steel  clash '"  of 
the  chanson  measure  is  more  than  ever  in  place : — 

"  A  icel  jor  ke  la  dolor  fu  grans, 
Et  la  bataille  orible  en  Aliscans  : 
Li  quens  Guillaumes  i  sovifri  grans  ahans." 

And  it  continues  in  the  same  key.    The  commentators 

declare  that  the  story  refers  to  an  actual  historical 

battle  of  Villedaigne,     This  may  be  a  fact : 

Aliscans,  ^         ^^  n  0        A  1  • 

the  literary  excellence  or  Ahscans  is  one. 
The  scale  of  the  battle  is  represented  as  being  enor- 
mous :  and  the  poet  is  not  unworthy  of  his  subject. 
Neither  is  William  impar  sihi :    but  his  day  of  un- 

^  Jonckbloet,  i.  215  to  end  ;    seijarately,  as  noted  above,  by  Gues- 
sard  and  de  Montaignon,  Paris,  1870. 


7G  EUllOPEAN   LITERATUKE,    1100-1300. 

broken  victory  is  over.  No  one  can  resist  him  per- 
sonally ;  but  the  vast  numbers  of  the  Saracens  make 
personal  valour  useless.  A'ivien,  already  hopelessly 
wounded,  fights  on,  and  receives  a  final  blow  from 
a  giant.  He  is  able,  however,  to  drag  himself  to  a 
tree  where  a  fountain  flows,  and  there  makes  his 
confession,  and  prays  for  his  uncle's  safety.  As  for 
William  himself,  his  army  is  entirely  cut  to  pieces, 
and  it  is  only  a  question  whether  he  can  possibly 
escape.  He  comes  to  Vivien's  side  just  as  his  nephew 
is  dying,  bewails  him  in  a  very  noble  passage,  receives 
his  last  breath,  and  is  able  before  it  passes  to  admin- 
ister the  holy  wafer  which  he  carries  with  him.  It  is 
Vivien's  first  communion  as  well  as  his  last. 

After  this  really  great  scene,  one  of  the  finest  in 
all  the  chansons,  "William  puts  the  corpse  of  A^ivien 
on  the  wounded  but  still  generous  Baucent,  and 
endeavours  to  make  his  way  through  the  ring  of 
enemies  who  have  held  aloof  but  are  determined  not 
to  let  him  go.  Night  saves  him :  and  though  he  has 
to  abandon  the  body,  he  cuts  his  way  through  a  weak 
part  of  the  line,  gains  another  horse  (for  Baucent  can 
carry  him  no  longer),  and  just  reaches  Orange.  But 
he  has  taken  the  arms  as  well  as  the  horse  of  a  pagan 
to  get  through  his  foes :  and  in  this  guise  he  is  refused 
entrance  to  his  own  city.  Guibourc  herself  rejects 
him,  and  only  recognises  her  husband  from  the  prow- 
ess which  he  shows  against  the  pursuers,  who  soon 
catch  him  up.  The  gates  are  opened  and  he  is  saved, 
but  Orange  is  surrounded  by  the  heathen.  There  is 
no  room   to  tell  the  full  heroism  of  Guibourc,  and, 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  77 

besides,  Aliscans  is  one  of  the  best  known  of  the 
chansons,  and  has  been  twice  printed. 

From  this  point  the  general  interest  of  the  saga, 
which    has    cuhiiinated    in    the    battle    of    Aliscans, 

The  end  of    thougli  it  Can  hardly  be  said  to  disappear, 

the  story.  dcclincs  somcwliat,  and  is  diverted  to 
other  persons  than  William  himself.  It  is  decided 
that  Guibourc  shall  hold  Orange,  while  he  goes  to 
the  Court  of  Louis  to  seek  aid.  This  personal  suit 
is  necessary  lest  the  fulness  of  the  overthrow  be  not 
believed ;  and  the  pair  part  after  a  scene  less  rugged 
than  the  usual  course  of  the  chansons,  in  which 
Guibourc  expresses  her  fear  of  the  "  damsels  bright 
of  blee,"  the  ladies  of  high  lineage  that  her  husband 
will  meet  at  Laon ;  and  William  swears  in  return 
to  drink  no  wine,  eat  no  flesh,  kiss  no  mouth,  sleep 
on  his  saddle-cloth,  and  never  change  his  garments 
till  he  meets  her  again. 

His  reception  is  not  cordial.  Louis  thinks  him 
merely  a  nuisance,  and  the  courtiers  mock  his 
poverty,  distress,  and  loneliness.  He  meets  with  no 
hospitality  save  from  a  citizen.  But  the  chance  arrival 
of  his  father  and  mother  from  Narbonne  prevents  him 
from  doing  anything  rash.  They  have  a  great  train 
with  them,  and  it  is  no  longer  possible  simply  to 
ignore  William ;  but  from  the  king  downwards,  there 
is  great  disinclination  to  grant  him  succour,  and 
Queen  Blanchefleur  is  especially  hostile.  William  is 
going  to  cut  her  head  off — his  usual  course  of  action 
when  annoyed  —  after  actually  addressing  her  in  a 
speech  of  extreme  directness,  somewhat   resembling 


78  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE;    1100-1:300. 

Hamlet's  to  Gertrude,  but  much  ruder.  Their 
mother  saves  Blanchefleur.  and  after  she  has  fled  in 
terror  to  her  chamber,  the  fair  Aelis,  her  daughter, 
a  gracious  apparition,  begs  and  obtains  forgiveness 
from  William,  short  of  temper  as  of  nose,  but  also 
not  rancorous.  Eeconciliation  takes  place  all  round, 
and  an  expedition  is  arranged  for  the  relief  of  Orange. 
It  is  successful,  but  chiefly  owing  to  the  prowess,  not  of 
William,  but  of  a  certain  Eenouart,  who  is  the  special 
hero,  not  merely  of  the  last  half  of  Aliscans,  but  of 
nearly  all  the  later  chansons  of  the  geste  of  Garin  de 
Montglane.  This  Eenouart  or  Eainouart  is  an  example, 
and  one  of  the  earliest,  perhaps  the  very  earliest,  of  the 
type  of  hero,  so  dear  to  the  middle  ages, 
who  begins  by  service  in  the  kitchen  or 
elsewhere,  of  no  very  dignified  characterj  and  ends  by 
being  discovered  to  be  of  noble  or  royal  birth. 
Eainouart  is  thus  the  ancestor,  and  perhaps  the 
direct  ancestor,  of  Havelok,  whom  he  especially 
resembles ;  of  Beaumains,  in  a  hitherto  untraced 
episode  of  the  Artliuriau  story,  and  of  others.  His 
early  feats  against  the  Saracens,  in  defence  of  Orange 
first,  and  then  when  William  arrives,  are  made  with 
no  knightly  weapon,  but  with  a  Unci — huge  bludgeon, 
beam,  "caber"— but  he  afterwards  turns  out  to  be 
Guibourc's,  or  rather  Orable's,  own  brother.  There  are 
very  strong  comic  touches  in  all  this  part  of  the 
poem,  such  as  the  difficulty  Eainouart  finds  in  re- 
mounting his  comrades,  the  seven  nephews  of 
William,  because  his  tinel  blows  are  so  swashing 
that  they  simply  smash  horse  and  man- — a  difficulty 


CHANSONS    DE    GESTE.  79 

overcome  by  the  ingenious  suggestion  of  Bertrand 
that  he  shall  hit  with  the  small  end.  And  these 
comic  touches  have  a  little  disturbed  those  who  wish 
to  find  in  the  pure  chanson  de  gcstc  nothing  but  war 
and  religion,  honour  and  generosity.  But,  as  has 
been  already  hinted,  this  is  to  be  over-nice.  No 
doubt  the  oldest  existing,  or  at  least  the  oldest  yet 
discovered,  MS.  of  Aliscans  is  not  the  original,  for  it 
is  rhymed,  not  assonanced,  a  practically  infallible 
test.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
comic  touches  are  all  new,  though  they  may  have 
been  a  little  amplified  in  the  later  version.  Once 
more,  it  is  false  argument  to  evolve  the  idea  of  a 
chanson  from  Roland,  only,  and  then  to  insist  that  all 
chansons  shall  conform  to  it. 

After  the  defeat  of  Desrame,  and  the  relief  of  half- 
ruined  Orange,  the  troubles  of  that  city  and  its  Count 
are  not  over.  The  admiral  returns  to  the  charge,  and 
the  next  chanson,  the  Bataillc  Loquifcr,  is  ranked  by 
good  judges  as  ancient,  and  describes  fresh  prowess  of 
Eainouart.  Then  comes  the  Moniagc  ["  Monking  "  of] 
Rainouart,  in  which  the  hero,  like  so  many  other  heroes, 
takes  the  cowl.  This,  again,  is  followed  by  a  series 
describing  chiefly  the  reprisals  in  Spain  and  elsewhere 
of  the  Christians — Fotdqucs  dc  Candie,  the  Siege  de  Bar- 
hastre,  the  Prise  de  Cordres,  and  Gilbert  d'Andrenas. 
And  at  last  the  whole  geste  is  wound  up  by  the  Mort 
Aimeri  de  Narhonne,  Renicr,  and  the  Moniagc  Chiil- 
laume,  the  poem  which  unites  the  profane  history 
of  the  Marquis  au  Court  Ncz  to  the  legend  of  St 
William  of  the  Desert,  though  in  a  fashion  sometimes 


80  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

odd.  AI.  Gavitier  will  not  allow  any  of  these  poems 
(except  the  Bataillc  Loquifer  and  the  two  Montages) 
great  age ;  and  even  if  it  were  otherwise,  and  more 
of  them  were  directly  accessible,^  there  could  be  no 
space  to  say  much  of  them  here.  The  sketch  given 
should  bo  sufficient  to  show  the  general  characteristics 
of  the  chansons  as  each  is  in  itself,  and  also  the 
curious  and  ingenious  way  in  which  their  successive 
authors  have  dovetailed  and  pieced  them  together 
into  continuous  family  chronicles. 

If  these  delights  can  move  any  one,  they  may  be 
found  almost  universally  distributed  about  the 
Some  other  cJiansons.  Of  the  minor  groups  the  most 
chansons,  interesting  and  considerable  are  the  cru- 
sading cycle,  late  as  it  is  in  part,  and  that  of  the 
Lorrainers,  which  is,  in  the  main,  very  early.  Of 
the  former  the  Chansons  d'Antioche  and  de  Jerusalem 
are  almost  historical,  and  are  pretty  certainly  based 
on  the  account  of  an  actual  partaker.  Antioche  in 
particular  has  few  superiors  in  the  wliole  hundred 
and  more  poems  of  the  kind..  Udias  ties  this  historic 
matter  on  to  legend  proper  by  introducing  the  story 
of  the  Knight  of  the  Swan ;  while  Zcs  CMtifs  {The 
Captives)  combines  history  and  legend  very  interest- 
ingly, starting  as  it  does  with  a  probably  historical 
capture  of  certain  Christians,  who  are  then  plunged 
in  dreamland  of  romance  for  the  rest  of  it.  The 
concluding  poems  of  this  cycle,  Baudouin  de  ScIoutg 
and  the  Bastart  de  Bouillon,  have  been  already  more 

^  Foulqucs  de  Candle  (ed.  Tarbe,  Reims,  1860)  is  the  only  one  of 
this  batch  which  I  pussess,  or  have  read  in  extcntiu. 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  81 

than  once  mentioned  They  show,  as  has  been  said, 
the  latest  form  of  the  chanson,  and  are  ahnost  pure 
fiction^  though  they  have  a  sort  of  framework  or  out- 
line in  tlie  wars  in  Northern  Arabia,  at  and  round 
the  city  of  Jof,  whose  crusading  towers  still,  according 
to  travellers,  look  down  on  tlie  hadj  route  through 
the  desert.  Garin  le  Zoherain,  on  the  other  hand,  and 
its  successors,  are  pure  early  feudal  fighting,  as  is  also 
the  early,  excellent,  and  very  characteristic  Raoul  de 
CamhraL  These  are  instances,  and  no  doubt  not  the 
only  ones,  of  what  may  be  called  district  or  provincial 
gestes,  applying  the  principles  of  the  chansons  gener- 
ally to  local  quarrels  and  fortunes. 

Of  what  purists  call  the  sophisticated  chansons, 
those  in  which  general  romance-motives  of  different 
kinds  are  embroidered  on  the  strictly  chanson  canvas, 
there  are  probably  none  more  interesting  than  the  later 
forms  of  Huon  de  Bordeaux  and  Ogier  de  Daneniarche. 
The  former,  since  the  fortunate  reprinting  of  Lord 
Berners's  version  by  the  Early  English  Text  Society,  is 
open  to  every  one,  though,  of  coursej  the  last  vestiges 
of  chanson  form  have  departed,  and  those  who  can 
should  read  it  as  edited  in  M.  Guessard's  series.  The 
still  more  gracious  legend,  in  which  the  ferocious 
champion  Ogier,  after  his  early  triumphs  over  the 
giant  Caraheu  and  against  the  paladins  of  Charles,  is, 
like  HuoU;  brought  to  the  loadstone  rock,  is  then 
subjected  to  the  enchantments — loving,  and  now  not 
baneful — of  Arthur's  sister  Morgane,  and  tears  him- 
self from  fairyland  to  come  to  the  rescue  of  France, 
is   b}'    far   the   most   delightful   of   the   attempts   to 


82  EUllOPEAN   LITEKATUEE,   1100-1300. 

"  cross  "  the  Artlmriuii  aud  Carlo vingian  cycles.  And 
of  this  we  fortunately  have  in  English  a  poetical 
version  from  the  great  trouvire  among  the  poets  of 
our  day,  the  late  Mr  William  Morris.  Of  yet  others, 
the  often-mentioned  Voyage  a  ConstmitinoUc,  with  its 
rather  unseemly  gabz  (boasting  jests  of  the  peers, 
which  are  overheard  by  the  heathen  emperor  with 
results  which  seem  like  at  one  time  to  be  awkward), 
is  among  the  oldest,  and  is  a  warning  against  the 
tendency  to  take  the  presence  of  comic  elements 
as  a  necessary  evidence  of  late  date.  Les  Saisnes, 
dealing  with  the  war  against  the  Saxons,  is  a  little 
loose  in  its  morals,  bvit  vigorous  and  interesting.  The 
pleasant  pair  of  Aiol  and  Elie  dc  St  Gilles ;  the  touch- 
ing history  of  Charlemagne's  motlier,  Berte  cms  grans 
PUs ;  Acquin,  one  of  the  rare  chansons  dealing  with 
Brittany  (though  Roland  was  historically  count 
thereof) ;  Gdrard  de  Bmissillon.  which  has  more  than 
merely  philological  interest ;  Macaire,  already  men- 
tioned; the  famous  Qtiatre  Fils  d'Agmon,  longest  and 
most  widely  popular,  must  be  added  to  the  list,  and 
are  not  all  that  should  be  added  to  it. 

On  the  whole,  I  must  repeat  that  the  chansons  de 
gestc,  which  as  we  have  them  are  the  work  of  the 
Final  remarics  twclftli  and  thirteenth  centuries  in  the 
0)1  ikcvi.  main,  form  the  second  division  in  point  of 

literary  value  of  early  mediaeval  literature,  while  they 
possess,  in  a  certain  "  sincerity  and  strength,"  qualities 
not  to  be  found  even  in  the  Arthurian  story  itself.  De- 
spite the  ardour  with  which  they  have  been  philo- 
logically    studied    for    nearly    three-quarters    of    a 


CHANSONS   DE   GESTE.  83 

century,  despite  (or  perhaps  because  of)  the  enthu- 
siasm which  one  or  two  devotees  have  shown  for  their 
literary  qualities,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  fair 
justice,  or  anything  like  it,  has  yet  been  generally 
done.  German  critics  care  little  for  literary  merit, 
and  are  perhaps  not  often  trained  to  appreciate  it ;  in 
England  the  chansons  have  been  strangely  little  read. 
But  the  most  singular  thing  is  the  cold  reception, 
slightly  if  at  all  thawed  recently,  which  they  have 
met  in  France  itself.  It  may  give  serious  pause  to 
the  very  high  estimate  generally  entertained  of  French 
criticism  by  foreigners  to  consider  this  coldness,  which 
once  reached  something  like  positive  hostility  in  M. 
Ferdinand  Brunetiere,  the  chief  French  literary  critic 
of  our  generation.  I  regret  to  see  that  M.  Lanson, 
the  latest  historian  of  French  literature,  has  not  dared 
to  separate  himself  from  the  academic  grcx.  "  On  ne 
saurait  nier,"  he  says,  "  que  quelques  uns  aient  eu  du 
talent;"  but  he  evidently  feels  that  this  generous 
concession  is  in  need  of  guards  and  caveats.  There  is 
no  "  beaute  formelle  "  in  them,  he  says — no  formal 
beauty  in  those  magnificently  sweeping  laisses,  of  which 
the  ear  that  has  once  learnt  their  music  can  no  more 
tire  thereafter  than  of  the  sound  of  the  sea  itself.  The 
style  (and  if  it  be  objected  that  his  previous  words 
have  been  directly  addressed  to  the  later  chansons  and 
chanson  writers,  here  he  expressly  says  that  this  style 
" est  le  meme  style  que  dans  le  Roland"  though 
"  moins  sobre,  moins  plein,  moins  sur  ")  has  "  no  beauty 
by  itself,"  and  finally  he  thinks  that  the  best  thing  to 
do  is  "  to  let  nine-tenths  of  the  chansons  follow  nine- 


84  EUKOPEAN    LlTEKATUllE,    1100-1300. 

tenths  of  our  tragedies."  I  have  read  many  chansons 
and  many  tragedies  ;  but  I  have  never  read  a  chanson 
that  has  not  more  poetry  in  it  than  ninety-nine  French 
tragedies  out  of  a  hundred. 

The  fact  is  that  it  is  precisely  the  hcauU  formelle, 
assisted  as  it  is  .by  the  peculiar  spirit  of  which  so  much 
has  been  said  already,  which  constitutes  the  beauty  of 
these  poems :  and  that  these  characteristics  are  present, 
not  of  course  in  uniform  measure^  but  certainly  in  the 
great  majority  of  the  chansons  from  Roland  to  the 
Bastard.  Of  course  if  a  man  sits  down  with  a  pre- 
conceived idea  of  an  epic  poem,  it  is  more  likely  than 
not  that  his  preconceived  idea  will  be  of  something 
very  different  from  a  chanson  de  geste.  And  if,  refusing 
to  depart  from  his  preconceived  idea,  and  making  that 
idea  up  of  certain  things  taken  from  the  Iliad,  certain 
from  the  ^ncid,  certain  from  the  Divina  Commedia, 
certain  from  Paradise  Lost, — if  he  runs  over  the  list 
and  says  to  the  chanso7i,  "  Are  you  like  Homer  in 
this  point  ?  Can  you  match  me  Virgil  in  that  ? ''  the 
result  will  be  that  the  cltanson  will  fail  to  pass  its 
examination. 

But  if,  with  some  knowledge  of  literature  in  the 
wide  sense,  and  some  love  for  it,  he  sits  down  to  take 
the  chansons  as  they  are,  and  judge  them  on  their 
merits  and  by  the  law  of  their  own  poetical  state, 
then  I  think  he  will  come  to  a  very  different  con- 
clusion. He  will  say  that  their  kind  is  a  real  kind, 
a  thing  by  itself,  something  of  which  if  it  were  not, 
nothing  else  in  literature  could  precisely  supply  the 
want.     And  he  will  decide  further  that  while  the  best 


CHAXSONS    DE    flESTE.  85 

of  them  are  remarkably  good  of  their  kind,  few  of 
them  can  be  called  positively  bad  in  it.  And  yet 
again,  if  he  has  been  fortunately  gifted  by  nature  with 
that  appreciation  of  form  which  saves  the  critic  from 
mere  prejudice  and  crotchet,  from  mere  partiality,  he 
will,  I  believe,  go  further  still,  and  say  that  while 
owing  something  to  spirit,  they  owe  most  to  form 
itself,  to  the  form  of  the  single-assonanced  or  mono- 
rhymed  tirade,  assisted  as  it  is  by  the  singular  beauty 
of  Old  French  in  sound,  and  more  particularly  by  the 
sonorous  recurring  phrases  of  the  chanson  dialect.  No 
doubt  much  instruction  and  some  amusement  can  be 
got  out  of  these  poems  as  to  matters  of  fact :  no  doubt 
some  passages  in  Roland,  in  Aliscans,  in  the  Couronne- 
ment  Loys,  have  a  stern  beauty  of  thought  and  senti- 
ment which  deserves  every  recognition.  But  these 
things  are  not  all-pervading,  and  they  can  be  found 
elsewhere :  the  clash  and  clang  of  the  tirade  are  every- 
where here,  and  can  be  found  nowhere  else. 


86 


CHAP  TEE    III. 

THE    MATTER     OF    BRITAIN. 

ATTRACTIONS     OF     THE    ARTHURIAN    LEGEND  —  DISCUSSIONS     ON     THEIR 

SOURCES — THE    PERSONALITY   OP    ARTHUR THE    FOUR   WITNESSES 

THEIR    TESTIMONY THE    VERSION     OP    GEOFFREY ITS    LACUNA 

HOW  THE  LEGEND  GREW WAGE — LAYAMON — THE  ROMANCES  PROPER 

—  WALTER    MAP  —  ROBERT   DE   BORRON  —  CHRESTIEN   DE   TROYES  — 

PROSE    OR  VERSE    FIRST  ? A    LATIN    GRAAL-BOOK THE    MABINOGION 

THE    LEGEND   ITSELF THE   STORY    OF    JOSEPH    OP   ARIMATHEA 

MERLIN — LANCELOT — THE  LEGEND   BECOMES  DRAMATIC — STORIES  OP 
GAWAIN    AND    OTHER    KNIGHTS — SIR   TRISTRAM — HIS   STORY  ALMOST 

CERTAINLY   CELTIC — SIR   LANCELOT — THE   MINOR    KNIGHTS ARTHUR 

— GUINEVERE — THE  GRAAL- — HOW  IT  PERFECTS  THE  STORY — NATURE 
OF  THIS   PERFECTION — NO   SEQUEL  POSSIBLE — LATIN    EPISODES — THE 

LEGEND    AS    A    WHOLE THE    THEORIES     OF    ITS    ORIGIN CELTIC 

FRENCH — ENGLISH LITERARY THE    CELTIC    THEORY THE   FRENCH 

CLAIMS THE    THEORY    OF    GENERAL    LITERARY   GROWTH — THE    ENG- 
LISH   OR    ANGLO-NORMAN    PRETENSIONS — ATTEMPTED    HYPOTHESIS. 

To  English  readers,  and  perhaps  not  to  English  readers 
only,  the  middle  division  of  tlie  three  great  romance- 
subjects  ^  ought  to  be  of  far  higher  interest  than  the 

^  See  the  quotation  from  Jean  Bodel,  p.  26,  note.  The  literature 
of  the  Arthurian  question  is  very  large  ;  and  besides  the  drawbacks 
referred  to  in  the  text,  much  of  it  is  scattered  in  periodicals.  The 
most  useful  recent  things   in   English  are  Mr  Nutt's  Studies  on  the 


THE   MATTER   OF   BRITAIN.  87 

others ;  and  that  not  merely,  even  in  the  English  case, 
^„    ,.      ,  fur  reasons  of  local  patriotism.     The  medi- 

Attrachons  of  '■ 

the  ArtMirmn  geval  vcrsions  of  classical  story,  though  at- 
''^'"''  '  tractive  to  the  highest  degree  as  evidence 

of  the  extraordinary  plastic  power  of  the  period, 
which  could  transform  all  art  to  its  own  image 
and  guise,  and  though  not  destitute  of  individual 
charm  here  and  there,  must  always  be  mainly 
curiosities.  The  cycle  of  Charlemagne,  a  genuine 
growth  and  not  merely  an  incrustation  or  transfor- 
mation, illustrated,  moreover,  by  particular  examples 
of  the  highest  merit,  is  exposed  on  the  one  hand  to 
the  charge  of  a  certain  monotony,  and  on  the  other 
to  the  objection  that,  beautiful  as  it  is,  it  is  dead. 
For  centuries,  except  in  a  few  deliberate  literary  exer- 
cises, the  king  cc  la  harhe  Jlorie  has  inspired  no  modern 
singer — hiageste  is  extinct.  But  the  Legend  of  Arthur, 
the  latest  to  take  definite  form  of  the  three,  has  shown 

Lerjend  of  the  Holy  Grail  (London,  1888) ;  Professor  Rhys's  Arthurian 
Legend  (Oxford,  1891) ;  and  the  extensive  introduction  to  Dr  Sommer's 
Malory  (London,  1890).  In  French  the  elaborate  papers  on  different 
parts  which  M.  Gaston  Paris  brings  out  at  intervals  in  Romania  can- 
not be  neglected ;  and  M.  Loth's  surveys  of  the  subject  there  and  in 
the  Revue  Cdtique  (October  1892)  are  valuable.  Naturally,  there  has 
been  a  great  deal  in  German,  the  best  being,  perhaps,  Dr  Kolbing's 
long  introduction  to  his  reprint  of  Arthour  and  Merlin  (Leipzig,  1890)- 
Other  books  will  be  mentioned  in  subsequent  notes ;  but  a  comj)lete 
and  impartial  histoiy  of  the  whole  subject,  giving  the  contents,  with 
strictly  literary  criticism  only,  of  all  the  texts,  and  merely  sum- 
marising theories  as  to  origin,  &c. ,  is  still  wanting,  and  sorely  wanted. 
Probably  there  is  still  no  better,  as  there  is  certainly  no  more  delight- 
ful, book  on  the  matter  than  M.  Paulin  Paris's  Romans  de  la.  Table 
Ronde  (5  vols.,  Paris,  1868-77).  The  monograph  by  M.  Cledat  on  the 
subject  in  M.  Petit  de  Julleville'a  new  History  {v,  swpra,  p.  23,  note) 
is  unfortunately  not  by  any  means  one  of  the  best  of  these  studies. 


88  EUKOPEAX    LTTEP.ATUUE,    1100-1300. 

by  far  the  greatest  vitality.  From  generation  to  gene- 
ration it  has  taken  new  forms,  inspired  new  poetries. 
The  very  latest  of  the  centuries  has  been  tlie  most 
prolific  in  contributions  of  any  since  the  end  of  the 
Middle  Ages  ;  and  there  is  no  sufficient  reason  why  the 
lineage  should  ever  stop.  For  while  the  romance  of 
antiquity  is  a  mere  "  sport,"  an  accident  of  time  and 
circumstance,  the  chanson  de  gcste,  majestic  and  in- 
teresting as  it  is,  representative  as  it  is  to  a  certain 
extent  of  a  nation  and  a  language,  has  the  capital 
defect  of  not  being  adaptable.  Having  little  or  no 
allegorical  capacity,  little  "  soul,''  so  to  speak,  it  was 
left  by  the  tide  of  time  on  the  shores  thereof  without 
much  hope  of  floating  and  living  again.  The  Arthurian 
Legend,  if  not  from  the  very  first,  yet  from  the  first 
moment  when  it  assumed  vernacular  torms,  lent  itself 
to  that  double  meaning  which,  though  it  is  open  to 
abuse,  and  was  terribly  abused  in  these  very  ages, 
is  after  all  the  salvation  of  things  literary,  since  every 
age  adopting  the  first  and  outer  meaning  can  suit  the 
second  and  inner  to  its  own  taste  and  need. 

That  the  vitality  of  the  Legend  is  in  part,  if  not 
wholly,  due  to  the  strange  crossing  and  blending  of  its 
i)tom«,nson  sources,  I  at  least  have  no  doubt.  To 
tuir  sources,  (jigcuss  thcsc  sourccs  at  all,  much  more  to 
express  any  definite  opinion  on  the  proportions  and 
order  of  their  blending,  is  a  dilficult  matter  for  any 
literary  student,  and  dangerous  withal ;  but  the  adven- 
ture is  of  course  not  to  be  wholly  shirked  here.  The 
matter  has,  both  in  England  and  abroad,  been  quite 
recently  the  subject  of   that  rather  acrimonious  de- 


THE   MATTER   OF   BrJTAIN.  89 

bating  by  which  scholars  in  modern  tongues  seem  to 
think  it  a  point  of  honour  to  rival  the  scholars  of  a 
former  day  in  the  classics,  though  the  vocabulary  used  is 
less  picturesque.  A  great  deal  of  this  debate,  too.  turns 
on  matters  of  sheer  opinion,  in  regard  to  which  language 
only  appropriate  to  matters  of  sheer  knowledge  is  too 
often  used.  The  candid  inquirer,  informed  that  Mr, 
or  M.,  or  Herr  So-and-so,  has  "  proved  "  such  and  such 
a  thing  in  such  and  such  a  book  or  dissertation,  turns 
to  the  text,  to  find  to  his  grievous  disappointment 
that  nothing  is  "  proved "  —  but  that  more  or  less 
probable  arguments  are  advanced  with  less  or  more 
temper  against  or  in  favour  of  this  or  that  hypothesis. 
Even  the  dates  of  MSS.,  which  in  all  such  cases  must 
be  regarded  as  the  primary  data,  are  very  rarely  data  at 
all,  but  only  (to  coin,  or  rather  adapt,  a  much-needed 
term)  speculata.  And  the  matter  is  further  compli- 
cated by  the  facts  that  extremely  few  scholars  possess 
equal  and  adequate  knowledge  of  Celtic,  English, 
French,  German,  and  Latin,  and  that  the  best  palaeo- 
graphers are  by  no  means  always  the  best  literary 
critics. 

Where  every  one  who  has  handled  the  subject  has 
had  to  confess,  or  should  have  confessed,  imperfect 
equipment  in  one  or  more  respects,  there  is  no  shame  in 
confessing  one's  own  shortcomings.  I  cannot  speak  as  a 
Celtic  scholar ;  and  I  do  not  pretend  to  have  examined 
MSS.  But  for  a  good  many  years  I  have  been  familiar 
with  the  printed  texts  and  documents  in  Latin,  Eng- 
lish, French,  and  German,  and  I  believe  that  I  have 
not  neglected  any  important  modern  discussions  of  the 


90  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

subject.  To  have  no  Celtic  is  the  less  disqualification 
in  that  all  the  most  qualified  Celtic  scholars  them- 
selves admit,  however  highly  they  may  rate  the 
presence  of  the  Celtic  element  in  spirit,  that  no 
texts  of  the  legend  in  its  romantic  form  at  present 
existing  in  the  Celtic  tongues  are  really  ancient.  And 
it  is  understood  that  there  is  now  very  little  left 
unprinted  that  can  throw  much  light  on  the  general 
question.  I  shall  therefore  endeavour,  without  enter- 
ing into  discussions  on  minor  points  which  would  be 
unsuitable  to  the  book,  to  give  what  seems  to  me  the 
most  probable  view  of  the  case,  corrected  by  (though 
not  by  any  means  adjusted  in  a  hopeless  zigzag  of 
deference  to)  the  various  authorities,  from  Eitson  to 
Professor  Ehys,  from  Paulin  Paris  to  M.  Loth,  and 
from  San  Marte  to  Drs  Porster  and  Zimmer, 

The  first  and  the  most  important  thing — a  thing 
which  has  been  by  no  means  always  or  often  done 
— is  to  keep  the  question  of  Arthur  apart  from  the 
question  of  the  Arthurian  Legend. 

That  there  was  no  such  a  person  as  Arthur  in  reality 
was  at  one  time  a  not  very  uncommon  opinion  among 
Thepersonaiity  nien  wlio  could  Call  themselvcs  scholars, 
of  Arthur.  though  of  latc  it  has  yielded  to  probable  if 
not  certain  arguments.  The  two  most  damaging  facts 
are  the  entire  silence  of  Bede  and  that  of  Gildas  in  re- 
gard to  him.  The  silence  of  Bede  might  be  accidental, 
and  he  wrote  ex  hypothcsi  nearly  two  centuries  after 
Arthur's  day.  Yet  his  collections  were  extremely 
careful,  and  the  neighbourhood  of  his  own  North- 
umbria  was  certainly  not   that   in   which   traditions 


THE   ^rATTER    OF   BTtlTAIX.  91 

of  Arthur  should  have  been  least  rife.  That  Gildas 
should  say  nothing  is  more  surprising  and  more  diffi- 
cult of  explanation.  For  putting  aside  altogether  the 
positive  testimony  of  the  Vita  Gildce,  to  which  we  shall 
come  presently,  Gildas  was,  again  ex  hypothesi,  a  con- 
temporary of  Arthur's,  and  must  have  known  all  about 
him.  If  the  compound  of  scolding  and  lamentation 
known  as  De  Excidio  Britannia^  is  late  and  a  forgery, 
we  should  expect  it  to  contain  some  reference  to  the 
king ;  if  it  is  early  and  genuine,  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  such  reference  could  possibly  be  omitted. 

At  the  same  time,  mere  silence  can  never  establish 
anything  but  a  presumption ;  and  the  presumption  is 
The/our  vit-  i^^    this    casc    reljutted     by    far    stronger 
iiesses.  probabilities     on     the    other    side.       The 

evidence  is  here  drawn  from  four  main  sources, 
which  we  may  range  in  the  order  of  their  chrono- 
logical bearing.  First,  there  are  the  Arthurian 
place  -  names,  and  the  traditions  respecting  them ; 
secondly,  the  fragments  of  genuine  early  Welsh  re- 
ference to  Arthur ;  thirdly,  the  famous  passage  of 
Nennius,  which  introduces  him  for  the  first  time  to 
probably  dated  literature ;  fourthly,  the  curious  refer- 
ences in  the  above-referred-to  Vita  Crildo'  of,  or  attrib- 
uted to,  Caradoc  of  Lancarvan.  After  this  last,  or  at 
a  time  contemporary  with  it,  we  come  to  the  compara- 
tively detailed  account  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  and 
the  beginning  of  the  Legend  proper. 

To  summarise  this  evidence  as  carefully  but  as 
briefly  as  possible,  we  find,  in  almost  all  parts  of 
Britain    beyond    the    range    of    the    first    Saxon    con- 


92  EUKOPEAX   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

quests,   but    especially    in    West  Wales,    Strathclyde, 
and   Lothian,  certain  place-names  connec- 

Their  testimony.     .  •   i        i       i  -i  • 

tnig  themselves  either  with  Arthur  him- 
self or  with  the  early  catalogue  of  his  battles.^  We 
find  allusions  to  him  in  Welsh  poetry  which  may 
be  as  old  as  the  sixth  century — allusions,  it  is  true, 
of  the  vaguest  and  most  meagre  kind,  and  touching 
no  point  of  his  received  story  except  his  mysterious 
death  or  no -death,  but  fairly  corroborative  of  his 
actual  existence.  Nennius^ — the  much-debated  Nen- 
nius,  whom  general  opinion  attributes  to  the  ninth 
century,  but  who  uiay  be  as  early  as  the  eighth, 
and  cannot  well  be  later  than  the  tenth — gives  us 
the  catalogue  of  the  twelve  battles,  and  the  exploits 
of  Arthur  against  the  Saxons,  in  a  single  paragraph 
containing  no  reference  to  any  but  military  matters, 
and  speaking  of  Arthur  not  as  king  but  as  a  dux 
hellorum  commanding  kings,  many  of  whom  were 
more  noble  than  himself. 

The  first  authority  from  whom  we  get  any  personal 

1  The  late  Mr  Skene,  with  great  learning  and  ingenuity,  endeavoured 
in  his  Four  Ancient  Boohs  of  Wales  to  claim  all  or  almost  all  these 
place-names  for  Scotland  in  the  wide  sense.  This  can  hardly  be 
admitted :  but  impartial  students  of  the  historical  references  and 
the  romances  together  will  observe  the  constant  introduction  of 
northern  localities  in  the  latter,  and  the  express  testimony  in  the 
former  to  the  effect  that  Arthur  was  general  of  all  the  British  forces. 
We  need  not  rob  Cornwall  to  pay  Lothian.  For  the  really  old 
references  in  Welsh  poetry  see,  besides  Skene,  Professor  Rhys,  op.  cit. 
Gildas  and  Nennius  (but  not  the  Vita  Gildce)  will  be  found  con- 
veniently translated,  with  Geoffrey  himself,  in  a  volume  of  Bohn's 
Historical  Library,  Six  Old  English  Chronicles.  The  E.E.T.S.  edition 
of  Merlin  contains  a  vejy  long  excursus  by  ]\[r  Stuart-Glennie  on  the 
lace-name  question. 


THE   MATTER   OF   BKITAIN,  93 

account  of  Arthur  is  Caradoc,  if  Caradoc  it  be.  Tlie 
biographer  makes  his  hero  St  Gildas  (I  put  luinor 
and  irrelevant  discrepancies  aside)  contemporary  with 
Arthur;  Avhom  he  loved,  and  who  was  king  of  all 
Greater  Britain.  But  his  brother  kings  did  not  admit 
this  sovereignty  quietly^  and  often  put  him  to  flight. 
At  last  Arthur  overthrew  and  slew  Hoel,  who  was 
his  iniajor  natu,  and  became  unquestioned  rex  U7iiver- 
salis  Britannice,  but  incurred  the  censure  of  the 
Church  for  killing  Hoel.  From  this  sin  Gildas  him- 
self at  length  absolved  him.  But  King  Melvas  carried 
off  King  Arthur's  queen,  and  it  was  only  after  a 
year  that  Arthur  found  her  at  Glastonbury  and  laid 
siege  to  that  place.  Gildas  and  the  abbot,  however, 
arranged  matters,  and  the  queen  was  given  up.  It 
is  most  proper  to  add  in  this  place  that  probably 
at  much  the  same  time  as  the  writings  of  Caradoc 
and  of  Geoffrey  [v.  infra),  or  at  a  time  not  very 
distant,  A¥illiam  of  Malmesbury  and  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis  give  us  Glastonbury  traditions  as  to  the  tomb 
of  Arthur,  &c.,  which  show  that  by  the  middle  of  the 
twelfth  century  such  traditions  were  clustering  thickly 
about  the  Isle  of  Avalon.  All  this  time,  however,  it 
is  very  important  to  notice  that  there  is  hardly  the 
germ,  and,  except  in  Caradoc,  not  even  the  germ,  of 
what  makes  the  Arthurian  Legend  interesting  to  us, 
even  of  what  we  call  the  Arthurian  Legend.  Although 
the  fighting  with  the  Saxons  plays  an  important  part 
in  the  Merlin  branches  of  the  story,  it  has  extremely 
little  to  do  with  the  local  traditions,  and  was  con- 
tinually reduced  in   importance   by  the   men  of  real 


94  EUKOPEAN    LITEUATUKE,    1100-1300. 

genius,  especially  Mapes,  Chrestien,  and,  long  after- 
wards, Malory,  who  handled  them.  The  escapade  of 
]\Ielvas  communicates  a  touch  rather  nearer  to  the 
perfect  form,  but  only  a  little  nearer  to  it.  In  fact, 
there  is  hardly  more  in  the  story  at  this  point 
than  in  hundreds  of  other  references  in  early  history 
or  fiction  to  obscure  kinglets  who  fought  against 
invaders. 

And  it  is  again  very  important  to  observe  that, 
though  under  the  hands  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth 
™        .      ,    the  story  at  once  acquires  more  romantic 

The  version  of  J  ^ 

Geoffrey  proportious,    it    is    still    not   in    the    least, 

or  only  in  the  least,  the  story  that  we  know. 
The  advance  is  indeed  great.  The  wonder-working 
of  Merlin  is  brought  in  to  he\])  the  patriotism  of 
Arthur.  The  story  of  Uther's  love  for  Igraine  at  once 
alters  the  mere  chronicle  into  a  romance.  Arthur, 
the  fruit  of  this  passion,  succeeds  his  father,  carries 
on  victorious  war  at  home  and  abroad,  is  crowned 
with  magnificence  at  Caerleon,  is  challenged  by  and 
defeats  the  liomans,  is  about  to  pass  the  Alps  when  he 
hears  that  his  nephew  IMordred,  left  in  charge  of  the 
kingdom,  has  assumed  the  crown,  and  that  Guinevere 
(Guanhumara,  of  whom  we  have  only  heard  before  as 
"of  a  noble  lioman  family,  and  surpassing  in  beauty 
all  the  women  of  the  island ")  has  wickedly  married 
him.  Arthur  returns,  defeats  JMordred  at  Eutupias 
(after  this  battle  Guinevere  takes  the  veil),  and,  at 
Winchester,  drives  him  to  the  extremity  of  Corn- 
wall, and  there  overthrows  and  kills  him.  But  the 
renowned  King  Arthur  himself  was  mortally  wounded, 


THE   MATTER  OF   BEITAIN.  95 

anil  "being  carried  thence  to  the  Isle  of  Avallon  to 
Le  cured  of  his  wounds,  he  gave  up  the  crown  to  his 
kinsman  Constantine."  And  so  Arthur  passes  out  of 
Geoffrey's  story,  in  obedience  to  one  of  the  oldest, 
and  certainly  the  most  interesting,  of  what  seem  to 
be  the  genuine  Welsh  notices  of  the  king — "  Not  wise 
is  it  to  seek  the  grave  of  Arthur," 

A  few  people,   perhaps,  who   read  this  little  book 

will  need  to  be  told  that  Geoffrey  attributed  the  new 

and  striking  facts  which  he   sprun'r  upon 

Its  lacuiiiB.  i  o       i 

his  contemporaries  to  a  British  book  which 
Walter,  Archdeacon  of  Oxford,  had  brought  out  of 
Armorica :  and  that  not  the  slightest  trace  of  this  most 
interesting  and  important  work  has  ever  been  found. 
It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  it  has  not  survived,  in- 
asmuch as  it  was  not  only  "  a  very  ancient  book  in 
the  British  tongue,"  but  contained  "  a  continuous  story 
in  an  elegant  style."  However,  the  inquiry  whether 
Walter,  Archdeacon  of  Oxford,  did  or  did  not  belong 
to  the  ancient  British  family  of  Harris  may  be  left  to 
historians  proper.  To  the  specially  literary  liistorian 
the  chief  point  of  interest  is  first  to  notice  how  little, 
if  Geoffrey  really  did  take  his  book  from  "  British " 
sources,  those  sources  apparently  contained  of  the 
Arthurian  Legend  proper  as  we  now  know  it.  An  ex- 
tension of  the  fighting  with  Saxons  at  home,  and  the 
addition  of  that  with  Eomans  abroad,  the  Igraine 
episode,  or  rather  overture,  the  doubtless  valuable 
introduction  of  Merlin,  the  treason  of  IMordred  and 
Guinevere,  and  the  retirement  to  Avalon  —  that  is 
practically  all.     Xo  Hound  Table ;  no  knights  (thougli 


96  EUROPEAN   LITEKATURE,    1100-1300, 

"  Walgaii,  the  king  s  nephew,"  is,  of  course,  an  early 
appearance  of  G  a  wain) ;  none  of  the  interesting 
difficulties  about  Arthur's  succession :  an  entire 
absence  of  personal  characteristics  about  Guinevere 
(even  that  peculiarity  of  hers  which  a  French  critic 
has  politely  described  as  her  being  "very  subject  to 
be  carried  off"  and  which  already  appears  in  Caradoc, 
being  changed  to  a  commonplace  act  of  ambitious  in- 
fidelity with  Mordred^ :  and,  most  remarkable  of  all, 
no  Lancelot,  and  no  Holy  GraiL 

Nevertheless  Geoffrey  had,  as  it  has  been  the 
fashion  to  say  of  late  years,  ''  set  the  heather  on 
fire/'  and  perhaps  in  no  literary  instance  on  record 
did  the  blaze  spread  and  heighten  itself  with  such 
extraordinary  speed  and  intensity.  His  book  must 
have  been  written  a  little  before  the  middle  of  the 
twelfth  century :  by  the  end  thereof  the  legend 
was,  except  for  the  embellishments  and  amplifica- 
tions which  the  Middle  Age  was  always  giving, 
complete.. 

In  the  account  of  its  probable  origins  and  growth 
which  follows  nothing  can  be  further  from  the  writer's 
How  the  wish  than  to  emulate  the  confident  dognia- 
Legendgrew.  tism  of  tliose  who  claini  to  liavc  proved 
or  disproved  this  or  that  fact  or  hypothesis.  In  the 
nature  of  the  case  proof  is  impossible ;  we  cannot  go 
further  than  probability  It  is  unfortunate  that  some 
of  the  disputants  on  this,  as  on  other  kindred  subjects, 
have  not  more  frequently  remembered  the  admirable 
words  of  the  greatest  modern  practitioner  and 
though  he  lacked  some  more  recent  information,  the 


THE   :MATTER   of  BRITAIN.  97 

shrewdest  modern  critic  of  romance  itself.^  I  need 
only  say  that  though  I  have  not  in  the  least  borrowed 
from  either,  and  though  I  make  neither  responsible 
for  my  views,  these  latter,  as  they  are  about  to  be 
stated,  will  be  found  most  to  resemble  those  of  Sir 
Frederic  Madden  in  England  and  M.  Paulin  Paris 
in  France — the  two  critics  who,  coming  after  the  age 
of  wild  guessw^ork  and  imperfect  reading,  and  before 
that  of  a  scholarship  which,  sometimes  at  least, 
endeavours  to  vindicate  itself  by  innovation  for  the 
sake  of  innovation,  certainly  equalled,  and  perhaps 
exceeded,  any  others  in  their  familiarity  with  the 
actual  texts.  With  that  familiarity,  so  far  as  MSS. 
go,  I  repeat  that  I  do  not  pretend  to  vie.  But  long 
and  diligent  reading  of  the  printed  material,  assisted 
by  such  critical  lights  as  critical  practice  in  more 
literatures  than  one  or  two  for  many  years  may  give, 
has  led  me  to  the  belief  that  when  they  agreed  they 
were  pretty  sure  to  be  right,  and  that  when  they 
differed,  the  authority  of  either  was  at  least  equal,  as 
authority,  to  anything  subsequent. 

The  known  or  reasonably  inferred  historical  proces- 
sion of  the  Legend  is  as  follows.  Before  the  middle  of 
the  twelfth  century  we  have  nothing  that  can  be  called 
a  story.     At  almost  that  exact  point  (the  subject  of 

^  "  Both  these  subjects  of  discussion  [authorshijj  and  perform- 
ance of  Komances]  have  been  the  source  of  great  controversy  among 
antiquaries — a  class  of  men  who,  be  it  said  with  their  forgiveness,  are 
apt  to  be  both  positive  and  polemical  upon  the  very  points  which  are 
least  susceptible  of  proof,  and  least  valuable,  if  the  truth  could  be 
ascertained." — Sir  Walter  Scott,  "  Essay  on  Romance,"  Prose  Works, 
vi.  154. 

G 


98  EUROPEAN    LITEKATUKE,    1100-1300. 

tlie  dedication  of  the  Historia  Britonum  died  in  1146) 
Geoffrey  supi^lies  the  outlines  of  such  a  story.  They 
were  at  once  seized  upon  for  filling  in.  Before  many 
years  two  well  -  known  writers  had  translated 
Geoffrey's  Latin  into  Frencli,  another 
Geoffrey,  Gaimar,  and  AVace  of  Jersey. 
Gaimar's  Brut  (a  title  which  in  a  short  time  became 
generic)  has  not  come  down  to  us :  Wace's  (written 
in  1155)  has,  and  though  there  is,  as  yet,  no  special 
attention  bestowed  upon  Arthur,  the  Arthurian  part 
of  the  story  shares  the  process  of  dilatation  and 
amplification  usual  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  most 
important  of  these  additions  is  the  appearance  of 
the  Eound  Table. 

As  Geoffrey  fell  into  the  hands  of  Wace,  so  did 
Wace  fall  into  those  of  Layamon ;  but  here  the 
result  is  far  more  interesting,  both  for  the 
history  of  the  legend  itself  and  for  its 
connection  with  England.  Not  only  did  the  priest 
of  Ernley  or  Arley-on-Severn  do  the  English  tongue 
the  inestimable  service  of  introducing  Arthur  to  it, 
not  only  did  he  write  the  most  important  book  by  far, 
both  in  size,  in  form,  and  in  matter,  that  was  written 
in  English  between  the  Conquest  and  the  fourteenth 
century,  but  he  added  immensely  to  the  actual  legend. 
It  is  true  that  these  additions  still  do  not  exactly  give 
us  the  Arthur  whom  we  know,  for  they  still  concern 
the  wars  with  the  Saxons  and  Eomans  chiefly.  But 
if  it  were  only  that  we  find  first  ^   in  Layamon  the 

^  A  caution  may  be  necessary  as  to  this  word  "  first. "     Nearly  all 
the  dates  are  extremely  uncertain,  and  it  is  highly  probable  that 


Hollywood  Sc\.     .  _._  Gi.rk 

THE    MATTER    OF    BRITAIN.  99 

introduction  of  "  elves "  at  Arthur's  birth,  and  his 
conveyance  by  them  at  death  in  a  magic  boat  to 
Queen  "  Argante "  at  Avalon,  it  would  be  almost 
enough.  But  there  is  much  more.  The  Uther  story 
is  enlarged,  and  with  it  the  appearances  of  Merlin ; 
the  foundation  of  the  Eound  Table  receives  added 
attention ;  the  voluntary  yielding  of  Guinevere,  here 
called  Wenhaver,  is  insisted  upon,  and  Gawain  (Wal- 
wain)  and  Bedivere  (Beduer)  make  their  appearance. 
But  there  is  still  no  Lancelot,  and  still  no  Grail. 

These  additions,  which  on  the  one  side  gave  the 
greatest  part  of  the  secular  interest,  on  the  other 
The  Romances  a,lmost  the  whole  of  the  mystical  attrac- 
proper.  ^j^j^^  ^^  ^Yie  Complete  story,  had,  however, 

it  seems  probable,  been  actually  added  before  Lay- 
amon  wrote.  For  the  date  of  the  earlier  version  of 
his  Brut  is  put  by  the  best  authorities  at  not  earlier 
than  1200,  and  it  is  also,  according  to  such  authorities, 
almost  certain  that  the  great  French  romances  (which 
contain  the  whole  legend  with  the  exception  of  part 
of  the  Ti'istram  story,  and  of  hitherto  untraced 
excursions  like  Malory's  Beaumains)  had  been  thrown 
into  shape.  But  the  origin,  the  authorship,  and  the 
order  of  Merlin  in  its  various  forms,  of  the  Saint  Graal 
and  the  Quest  for  it,  of  Lancelot  and  the  Mort  Artus, 
— these  things  are  the  centre  of  nearly  all  the  disputes 
upon  the  subject. 

A  consensus  of  MS.  authority  ascribes  the  best  and 

intermediate  texts  of  great  imijortance  are  lost,  or  not  yet  found. 
But  Layamon  gives  us  Wace  as  an  autliority,  and  this  is  not  in  Wace. 
See  Madden's  edition  (London,  1847). 


100  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

largest  part  of  the  2'^'^ose  romances,^  especially  those 
dealing  with  Lancelot  and  the  later 
fortunes  of  the  Graal  and  the  Eound 
Table  company,  to  no  less  a  person  than  the  famous 
Englishman  Walter  Mapes,  or  Map,  the  author  of 
De  Nugis  Curialium,  the  reputed  author  [v.  chap,  i.) 
of  divers  ingenious  Latin  poems,  friend  of  Becket, 
Archdeacon  of  Oxford,  churchman,  statesman,  and 
wit.  No  valid  reason  whatever  has  yet  been  shown 
for  questioning  this  attribution,  especially  considering 
the  number,  antiquity,  and  strength  of  the  documents 
by  which  it  is  attested.  Map's  date  (1137-06)  is  the 
right  one ;  his  abilities  were  equal  to  any  literary 
performance ;  his  evident  familiarity  with  things 
AVelsh  (he  seems  to  have  been  a  Herefordshire  man) 
would  have  informed  him  of  Welsh  tradition,  if  there 
was  any,  and  the  De  Nugis  Curialmm  shows  us  in  him, 
side  by  side  with  a  satirical  and  humorous  bent,  the 
leaning  to  romance  and  to  the  marvellous  which  only 
extremely  shallow  people  believe  to  be  alien  from 
humour.  But  it  is  necessary  for  scholarship  of  the  kind 
just  referred  to  to  be  always  devising  some  new  thing. 
Frenchmen,  Germans,  and  Celticising  partisans  have 
grudged  an  Englishman  the  glory  of  the  exploit ;  and 

^  These,  both  Map's  and  Borron's  {v.  infra),  with  some  of  the  verse 
forms  connected  with  them,  are  in  a  very  puzzUng  condition  for 
study.  M.  Paulin  Paris's  book,  above  referred  to,  abstracts  most  of 
them  ;  the  actual  texts,  as  far  as  published,  are  chiefly  to  be  found  in 
Hucher,  Le  Saint  Graal  (3  vols.,  Le  Mans,  1875-78) ;  in  Michel's 
Petit  Saint  Graal  (Paris,  1841);  in  the  Merlin  of  MM.  G.  Paris  and 
Ulrich  (Paris,  1886).  But  Lancelot  and  the  later  parts  are  jjrac- 
tically  inaccessible  in  any  modern  edition. 


THE   MATTER   OF   BRITAIN.  101 

there  has  been  of  late  a  tendency  to  deny  or  slight 
Map's  claims.  His  deposition,  however,  rests  upon 
no  solid  argument,  and  though  it  would  be  exceedingly 
rash,  considering  the  levity  with  which  the  copyists 
in  mediaeval  MSS.  attributed  authorship,  to  assert 
positively  that  Map  wrote  Lancelot,  or  the  Qmst  of  the 
Saint  Graal,  it  may  be  asserted  with  the  utmost 
confidence  that  it  has  not  been  proved  that  he  did 
not. 

The  other  claimant  for  the  authorship  of  a  main 
part  of  the  story — in  this  case  the  Merlin  part,  and 

Robert  de     the    loug    history   of    the    Graal  from   the 

Borron.  ^^^^  q£  Joscpli  of  Arimathca  downwards — 
is  a  much  more  shadowy  person,  a  certain  Eobert  de 
Borron,  a  knight  of  the  north  of  France.  Nobody 
has  much  interest  in  disturbing  Borron's  claims, 
though  they  also  have  been  attacked ;  and  it  is  only 
necessary  to  say  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  ground 
for  supposing  that  he  was  an  ancestor  of  Lord  Byron, 
as  was  once  very  gratuitously  done,  the  time  when 
he  was  first  heard  of  happening  to  coincide  with  the 
popularity  of  that  poet. 

The  third  personage  who  is  certainly  or  uncertainly 
connected  by  name  with  the  original  framework  of 
chrestiende  the  legend  is  again  more  substantial  than 
Troyes.  Eobcrt    dc    Borrou,   though    less    so    than 

Walter  Map.  As  his  surname,  derived  from  his 
birthplace,  indicates,  Chrestien  de  Troyes  was  of 
Champenois  extraction,  thus  belonging  to  the  province 
which,  with  Normandy,  contributed  most  to  early 
French   literature.      And    he    seems    to    have    been 


102  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

attached  not  merely  to  the  court  of  his  native  prince, 
the  Count  of  Champagne,  but  to  those  of  the  neigh- 
bouring Walloon  lordships  or  principalities  of  Flanders 
and  Hainault.  Of  his  considerable  work  (all  of  it 
done,  it  would  seem,  before  the  end  of  the  twelfth 
century)  by  far  the  larger  part  is  Arthurian  —  the 
immense  romance  of  Pcrccvale  le  Gallois}  much  of 
which,  however,  is  the  work  of  continuators ;  the 
interesting  episode  of  the  Lancelot  saga,  called  Lc 
Chevalier  a  la  Charette ;  Erec  et  Enidc,  the  story 
known  to  every  one  from  Lord  Tennyson's  idyll; 
the  Chevalier  aM  Lyon,  a  Gawain  legend ;  and  Cligh, 
which  is  quite  on  the  outside  of  the  Arthurian  group. 
All  these  works  are  written  in  octosyllal^ic  couplets, 
particularly  light  and  skipping,  somewhat  destitute 
of  force  and  grip,  but  full  of  grace  and  charm.  Of 
their  contents  more  presently. 

Next  to  the  questions  of  authorship  and  of  origin 

in  point  of  difficulty  come  two  otliers — "Which  are 

the  older :  the  prose  or  the  verse  romances  ? "  and, 

"  Was  there  a  Latin  original  of  the  Graal  story  ? " 

With  regard  to  the  first,  it  has  long  been  laid  down 

Prose  or  verse  ^s  a  general  axiom,  and  it  is  no  doubt  as  a 

first?  rule  true,  that  prose  is  always  later  than 

verse,  and  that  in  mediaeval  times  especially  the  order 

1  Ed.  Potviii,  6  vols.,  Mons,  1866-70.  Dr  Forster  has  undertaken 
a  complete  Chrestien,  of  which  the  2d  and  3d  vols,  are  Yvcdn  ("Le 
Chevalier  au  Lyon")  and  Erec  (Halle,  1887-90).  Lc  Clievalicr  cl 
la  Charctte  should  be  read  in  Dr  Jonckbloct'a  invaluable  parallel 
edition  with  the  prose  of  Lancelot  (The  Hague,  1850).  On  this  last 
see  M.  G.  Paris,  Romania,  xii.  459 — an  admirable  paper,  though  I  do 
not  agree  with  it. 


THE   MATTEK   OF   BRITAIX.  103 

is  almost  invariable.  Verse ;  unrhymed  and  half-dis- 
rhytlimed  prose ;  prose  pure  and  simple :  that  is  what 
we  find.  For  many  reasons,  however,  drawn  partly 
from  the  presumed  age  of  the  MSS.  and  partly  from 
internal  evidence,  the  earlier  scholars  who  considered 
the  Arthurian  matter,  especially  M.  Paulin  Paris,  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  here  the  prose  romances  were, 
if  not  universally,  yet  for  the  most  part,  the  earlier. 
And  this,  though  it  is  denied  by  M.  Paris's  equally 
learned  son,  still  seems  the  more  probable  opinion.  For, 
in  the  first  place,  by  this  time  prose,  though  not  in  a 
very  advanced  condition,  was  advanced  enough  not 
to  make  it  absolutely  necessary  for  it  to  lag  behind 
verse,  as  had  been  the  case  with  the  chansons  de  geste. 
And  in  the  second  place,  while  the  prose  romances  are 
far  more  comprehensive  than  the  verse,  the  age  of  the 
former  seems  to  be  beyond  question  such  that  there 
could  be  no  need,  time,  or  likelihood  for  the  reduction 
to  a  general  prose  summary  of  separate  verse  originals, 
while  the  separate  verse  episodes  are  very  easily 
intelligible  as  developed  from  parts  of  the  prose 
original.^ 

With  regard  to  the  Latin  Graal-book,  the  testimony 

1  The  parallel  edition,  above  referred  to,  of  the  Chevalier  a  la  Charette 
and  the  corresponding  prose  settled  this  in  my  mind  long  ago  ;  and 
though  I  have  been  open  to  unsettlement  since,  I  have  not  been 
unsettled.  The  most  unlucky  instance  of  that  over-i:)ositiveness  to 
which  I  have  referred  above  is  M.  Cledat's  statement  that  "  nous 
savons  "  that  the  prose  romances  are  later  than  the  vei-se.  We  cer- 
tainly do  not  "  know "  this  any  more  than  we  know  the  contrarj^. 
There  is  important  authority  both  ways  ;  there  is  fair  argument  both 
ways ;  but  the  positive  evidence  which  alone  can  turn  opinion  into 
knowledge  ha?  not  been  produced,  and  probably  does  not  exist. 


104  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

of  the  romances  themselves  is  formal  enough  as  to  its 
A  Latin  existence.  But  no  trace  of  it  has  been 
Graai-iook.  found,  and  its  loss,  if  it  existed,  is  contrary 
to  all  probability.  For  ex  hypothesi  (and  if  we  take 
one  part  of  the  statement  we  must  take  the  rest)  it 
was  not  a  recent  composition,  but  a  document,  whether 
of  miraculous  origin  or  not,  of  considerable  age.  Why 
it  should  only  at  this  time  have  come  to  light,  why  it 
should  have  immediately  perished,  and  why  none  of 
the  persons  who  took  interest  enough  in  it  to  turn  it 
into  the  vernacular  should  have  transmitted  his  copy 
to  posterity,  are  questions  difficult,  or  rather  impos- 
sible, to  answer.  But  here,  again,  the  wise  critic  will 
not  peremptorily  deny.  He  will  say  that  there  may 
be  a  Latin  Graal-book,  and  that  when  that  book  is 
produced,  and  stands  the  test  of  examination,  he  will 
believe  in  it ;  but  that  until  it  appears  he  will  be  con- 
tented with  the  French  originals  of  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century.  Of  the  characteristic  and  probable 
origins  of  the  Graal  story  itself,  as  of  those  of  the 
larger  Legend  of  which  it  forms  a  part,  it  will  be  time 
enough  to  speak  when  we  have  first  given  an  account 
of  the  general  history  as  it  took  shape,  probably  before 
the  twelfth  century  had  closed,  certainly  very  soon 
after  the  thirteenth  had  opened.  For  the  whole  Legend 
— even  excluding  the  numerous  ramifications  into  in- 
dependent or  semi-independent  romans  d'aventures — 
is  not  found  in  any  single  book  or  compilation.  The 
most  extensive,  and  by  far  the  best,  that  of  our  own 
Malory,  is  very  late,  extremely  though  far  from 
unwisely    eclectic,    and    adjusted    to    the    presumed 


THE    MATTER    OF    BRITAIN.  105 

demands  of  readers,  and  to  the  certain  existence  in 
the  writer  of  a  fine  literary  sense  of  fitness.  It  would 
be  trespassing  on  the  rights  of  a  future  contributor 
to  say  much  directly  of  Malory ;  but  it  must  be  said 
here  that  in  what  he  omits,  as  well  as  in  his  treatment 
of  what  he  inserts,  he  shows  nothing  short  of  genius. 
Those  who  call  him  a  mere,  or  even  a  bad,  compiler, 
either  have  not  duly  considered  the  matter  or  speak 
unhappily. 

But  before  we  go  further  it  may  be  well  also  to  say 
a  word  on  the  Welsh  stories,  which,  though  now  ad- 
mitted to  he  in  their  present  form  later  than  the 
Eomances,  are  still  regarded  as  possible  originals  by 
some. 

It  would  hardly  be  rash   to  rest  the  question  of 
the  Celtic  origin,  in  any  but  the  most  remote  and 
partial    sense,   of    the    Arthurian    Eomances   on   the 
TheMaUn-    Mcchinogion '^    alone.       The    posteriority    of 
oginn.  tlicsc  as  wc  havc  them   need  not  be   too 

much  dwelt  upon.  We  need  not  even  lay  great 
stress  on  what  I  believe  to  be  a  fact  not  likely  to  be 
disputed  by  good  critics,  that  the  reading  of  the 
French  and  the  Welsh -English  versions  one  after 
the  other,  no  matter  in  what  order  they  be  taken, 
will  leave  something  more  than  an  impression  that 
the  French  is  the  direct  original  of  the  Welsh,  and 
that  the  Welsh,  in  anything  at  all  like  its  present 
form,  could  not  by  any  possibility  be  the  original  of 
the  French.  The  test  to  which  I  refer  is  this.  Let 
any  one  read,  with  as  open  a  mind  as  he  can  procure, 

1  Translated  by  Lady  Charlotte  Guest,  2d  ed.,  London,  1877. 


106  EUROrEAN   LlTEItATURE.    1100-1300. 

the  three  Welsh -French  or  French- Welsh  romances  of 
Yvain-Oivain,  Ercc-Gcraint,  and  Pcrcivalc-Percdur,  and 
then  turn  to  those  that  are  certainly  and  purely  Celtic, 
Killnvcli  and  Olwen,  the  Dream  of  Bliiahivy  (both  of 
these  Arthurian  after  a  fashion,  though  quite  apart 
from  our  Arthurian  Legend),  and  the  fourfold  Mah- 
inogi,  which  tells  the  adventures  of  Rhiannon  and 
those  of  Math  ap  Matholwy.  I  cannot  conceive  this 
being  done  by  any  one  without  his  feeling  that  he  has 
passed  from  one  world  into  another  entirely  different, 
— that  the  two  classes  of  story  simply  cannot  by  any 
possibility  be,  in  any  more  than  the  remotest  sugges- 
tion, the  work  of  the  same  people,  or  have  been  pro- 
duced under  the  same  literary  covenant. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  Legend  itself.     The  story 
which    ends    in    Avalon    begins    in   Jerusalem.       For 
The  Legend    thougli  tlic  Graal-lcgcnds  are  undoubtedly 
itself.  later  additions  to  whatever  may  have  been 

the  original  Arthurian  saga  —  seeing  that  we  find 
nothing  of  them  in  the  early  Welsh  traditions,  noth- 
ing in  Nennius,  nothing  in  Geoffrey,  nothing  even  in 
Wace  or  Layamon — yet  such  is  the  skill  with  which 
the  unknown  or  uncertain  authors  have  worked  them 
into  the  legend  that  the  whole  makes  one  indivisible 
romance.  Yet  (as  the  untaught  genius  of  Malory 
instinctively  perceived)  when  the  Graal-story  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  loves  of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere 
with  which  it  is  connected  on  the  other,  came  in, 
they  made  comparatively  otiose  and  uninteresting 
the  wars  with  Saxons  and  Komans,  which  in  the 
earlier  Legend  had  occupied  almost  the  whole  room. 


THE   MATTEll   OF   P.IIITAIN.  107 

And  accordingly  these  wars,  which  still  hold  a  very 
large  part  of  the  field  in  the  Merlhi,  drop  out  to  some 
extent  later.  The  whole  cycle  consists  practically  of 
five  parts,  each  of  which  in  almost  all  cases  exists  in 
divers  forms,  and  more  than  one  of  which  overlaps 
and  is  overlapped  by  one  or  more  of  the  others.  These 
five  are  Merlin,  the  Saint-Graal,  Lancelot,  the  Quest  of 
the  Saint-Gracd,  and  the  Death  of  Arthur.  Each  of 
the  first  two  pairs  intertwines  with  the  other:  the 
last,  3Iort  Artus,  completes  them  all,  and  thus  its 
title  was  not  improperly  used  in  later  times  to  desig- 
nate tlie  whole  Legend. 

The   starting-point  of   the  whole,  in   time  and   in- 
cident, is  the  supposed  revenge  of  the  Jews  on  Joseph 
„,    ,      ,    of  Arimathea  for  the  part  he  has  taken  in 

The  story  of  ^ 

Joseiihof       the  burial  of  our  Lord.     He  is  thrown  into 

Arimathea.  .  ,  .  ,  /      •  ^  ^ 

prison  and  remains  tliere  (miraculously 
comforted,  so  that  the  time  seems  to  him  but  as  a 
day  or  two)  till  delivered  by  Titus.  Then  he  and 
certain  more  or  less  faithful  Christians  set  out  in 
charge  of  the  Holy  Graal,  which  has  served  for  the 
Last  Supper,  which  holds  Christ's  blood,  and  which 
is  specially  under  the  guardianship  of  Josepli's  son, 
the  Bishop  "  Josephes,"  to  seek  foreign  lands,  and  a 
home  for  the  Holy  Vessel.  After  a  long  series  of  the 
wildest  adventures,  in  which  the  personages,  whose 
names  are  known  rather  mistily  to  readers  of  Malory 
only  —  King  Evelake,  Naciens,  and  others  —  appear 
fully,  and  in  which  many  marvels  take  place,  the  com- 
pany, or  the  holier  survivors  of  them,  are  finally  settled 
in  Britain.     Here  the  imprudence  of  Evelake  (or  Mor- 


108  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

drains)  causes  him  to  receive  the  "  dolorous  stroke," 
from  which  none  but  his  last  descendant,  Galahad,  is 
to  recover  him  fully.  The  most  striking  of  all  these 
adventures,  related  in  various  forms  in  other  parts  of 
the  Legend,  is  the  sojourn  of  Naciens  on  a  desert  island, 
where  he  is  tempted  of  the  devil ;  while  a  very  great 
part  is  played  throughout  by  the  Legend  of  the  Three 
Trees,  which  in  successive  ages  play  their  part  in  the 
Fall,  in  the  first  origin  of  mankind  according  to  natural 
birth,  not  creation,  in  the  building  of  the  Temple,  and 
in  the  Passion.  This  later  legend,  a  wild  but  very 
beautiful  one,  dominated  the  imagination  of  English 
mediaeval  writers  very  particularly,  and  is  fully  de- 
veloped, apart  from  its  Arthurian  use,  in  the  vast  and 
interesting  miscellany  of  the  Cursor  Mundi. 

But  when  the  Graal  and  its  guardians  have  been 
safely  established  upon  English  soil,  the  connection  of 
the  legend  with  the  older  and,  so  to  speak, 
historical  Arthurian  traditions,  is  effected 
by  means  of  Merlin,  in  a  manner  at  least  ingenious  if 
not  very  direct.  The  results  of  the  Passion,  and 
especially  the  establishment  on  earth  of  a  Christian 
monarchy  with  a  sort  of  palladium  in  the  Saint-Graal, 
greatly  disturb  the  equanimity  of  the  infernal  regions ; 
and  a  council  is  held  to  devise  counter-policy.  It 
occurs  apparently  that  as  this  discomfiture  has  come 
by  means  of  the  union  of  divine  and  human  natures, 
it  can  be  best  opposed  by  a  union  of  human  and 
diabolic:  and  after  some  minor  proceedings  a  seduc- 
tive devil  is  despatched  to  play  incubus  to  the  last 
and  chastest  daughter  of  a  prud'homme,  who  has  been 


THE   :\IATTER   OF   BRITAIN.  109 

driven  to  despair  and  death  by  previous  satanic  attacks. 
The  attempt  is  successful  in  a  way ;  but  as  the  victim 
keeps  her  chastity  of  intention  and  mind,  not  only  is 
she  herself  saved  from  the  legal  consequences  of  the 
matter,  but  her  child  when  born  is  the  celebrated 
Merlin,  a  being  endowed  with  supernatural  power  and 
knowledge,  and  not  always  scrupulous  in  the  use  of 
them,  but  always  on  the  side  of  the  angels  rather  than 
of  his  paternal  kinsfolk.  A  further  and  more  strictly 
literary  connection  is  effected  by  attributing  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Graal  history  to  his  information,  conveyed 
to  his  master  and  pupil  Blaise,  who  writes  it  (as  well 
as  the  earlier  adventures  at  least  of  the  Arthurian  era 
proper)  from  Merlin's  dictation  or  report. 

For  some  time  the  various  Merlin  stories  follow 
Geofi'rey  in  recounting  the  adventures  of  the  prophetic 
child  in  his  youth,  with  King  Vortigern  and  others. 
But  he  is  soon  brought  (again  in  accordance  with 
Geoffrey)  into  direct  responsibility  for  Arthur,  by  his 
share  in  the  wooing  of  Igraine.  For  it  is  to  be  observed 
that — and  not  in  this  instance  only — though  there  is 
usually  some  excuse  for  him,  Merlin  is  in  these  affairs 
more  commonly  occupied  in  making  two  lovers  happy 
than  in  attending  to  the  strict  dictates  of  morality. 
And  thenceforward  till  his  inclusion  in  his  enchanted 
prison  (an  affair  in  which  it  is  proper  to  say  that  the 
earliest  versions  give  a  much  more  favourable  account 
of  the  conduct  and  motives  of  the  heroine  than  that 
which  Malory  adopted,  and  which  Tennyson  for  pur- 
poses of  poetic  contrast  blackened  yet  further)  he  plays 
the   part    of   adviser,   assistant,   and   good    enchanter 


110  EUROPEAN    LITEltATUEE,    1100-1300. 

generally  to  Arthur  and  Arthur's  knights.  He  in 
some  stories  directly  procures,  and  in  all  contirms, 
the  seating  of  Arthur  on  his  father's  throne ;  he 
brings  the  king's  nephews,  Gawain  and  the  rest,  to 
assist  their  uncle,  in  some  cases  against  their  own 
fathers ;  he  ])resides  over  the  foundation  of  the  liound 
Table,  and  brings  about  the  marriage  of  Guinevere  and 
Arthur ;  he  assists,  sometimes  by  actual  force  of  arms, 
sometimes  as  head  of  the  intelligence  department, 
sometimes  by  simple  graniarye,  in  the  discomfiture  not 
merely  of  the  rival  and  rebel  kinglets,  but  of  the 
Saxons  and  Eomans.  As  has  been  said,  Malory  later 
thought  proper  to  drop  the  greater  part  of  this  latter 
business  (including  the  interminable  fights  round  the 
Roche  aux  Saisncs  or  Saxon  rock).  And  he  also  dis- 
carded a  curious  episode  which  makes  a  great  figure  in 
the  original  Ihrlin,  the  tale  of  the  "  false  Guinevere,"  a 
foster-sister,  namesake,  and  counterpart  of  the  true 
princess,  who  is  nearly  substituted  for  Guinevere  her- 
self on  her  bridal  night,  and  who  later  usurps  for  a 
considerable  time  the  place  and  rights  of  the  queen. 
For  it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  Arthur,  not 
even  in  Malory  a  "  blameless  king  "  by  any  means,  is 
in  the  earlier  and  original  versions  still  less  blame- 
less, especially  in  the  article  of  faithfulness  to  his 
wife. 

We  do  not,  however,  in  the  Merlin  group  proper  get 
any  tidings  of  Lancelot,  though  Lucan,  Kay,  Bedivere, 
and  others,  as  well  as  Gawain  and  the  other  sons  of 
Lot,  make  their  appearance,  and  the  Arthurian  court 
and  rdgime,  as  we  imagine  it  with  the  liound  Table,  is 


THE    MATTER    OF    BRITAIN.  Ill 

already  constituted.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  in  the 
earlier  versions  there  is  even  a  sharp  rivalry  between 
the  "  Round  Table "  proper  and  the  "  Queen's "  or 
younger  knights.  But  this  subsides,  and  the  whole  is 
centred  at  Canielot,  with  the  realm  (until  Mordred's 
treachery)  well  under  control,  and  with  a  constant 
succession  of  adventures,  culminating^  in  the  fjreatest 
of  all,  the  Quest  of  the  Graal  or  Sangreal  itself. 
Although  there  are  passages  of  great  beauty,  the  ex- 
cessive mysticism,  the  straggling  conduct  of  the  story, 
and  the  extravagant  praise  of  virginity  in  and  for 
itself,  in  the  early  Graal  history,  have  offended  some 
readers.  In  the  Mei'lin  proper  the  incompleteness,  the 
disproportionate  space  given  to  mere  kite -and -crow 
fighting,  and  the  defect  of  love-interest,  undoubtedly 
show  themselves.  Although  Merlin  was  neither  by 
extraction  nor  taste  likely  to  emulate  the  almost  fero- 
cious horror  of  human  affection  entertained  by  Robert 
de  Borron  (if  Robert  de  Borron  it  was),  the  authors  of 
his  history,  except  in  the  version  of  his  own  fatal  pas- 
sion, above  referred  to,  have  touched  the  subject  with 
little  grace  or  charm.  And  while  the  great  and  capital 
tragedies  of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere,  of  Tristram  and 
Iseult,  are  wholly  lacking,  there  is  an  equal  lack  of 
such  minor  tilings  as  the  episodes  of  Lancelot  and  the 
two  Elaines,  of  Pelleas  and  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  and 
many  others.  Nor  is  this  lack  compensated  by  the 
stories  of  the  incestuous  (though  on  neither  side  con- 
sciously incestuous,  and  on  the  queen's  quite  innocent) 
adventure  of  Arthur  with  his  sister  Margause,  of  the 
exceedingly  unromautic  wooing  of  IMorgane  le  Fee, 


112  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    llUO-1300. 

and  of  the  warlock-planned  intercourse  of  King  Ban 
and  the  mother  of  Lancelot. 

Whether  it  was  Walter  Map,  or  Chrestien  de  Troyes, 
or  both,  or  neither,  to  whom  the  glory  of  at  once  com- 
pleting and  exalting  the  story  is  due,  I  at 
least  have  no  pretension  to  decide.  Who- 
soever did  it,  if  he  did  it  by  himself,  was  a  very  great 
man  indeed — a  man  second  only  to  Dante  among  the 
men  of  the  Middle  Age.  Even  if  it  was  done  by  an 
irregular  company  of  men,  each  patching  and  piecing 
the  others'  efforts,  the  result  shows  a  marvellous 
"  wind  of  the  spirit "  abroad  and  blowing  on  that 
company.  As  before,  the  reader  of  Malory  only, 
though  he  has  nearly  all  the  best  things,  has  not 
quite  all  even  of  those,  and  is  without  a  considerable 
number  of  things  not  quite  the  best,  but  good.  The 
most  difficult  to  justify  of  the  omissions  of  Sir  Thomas 
is  the  early  history  of  the  loves  of  Guinevere  and 
Lancelot,  when  the  knight  was  introduced  to  the 
queen  by  Galahault  the  haughty  prince — "  Galeotto," 
as  he  appears  in  the  most  universally  known  passage 
of  Dante  himself.  Not  merely  that  unforgettable 
association,  but  the  charm  and  grace  of  the  original 
passage,  as  well  as  the  dramatic  and  ethical  justifica- 
tion, so  to  speak,  of  the  fatal  passion  which  wrecked  at 
once  Lancelot's  quest  and  Arthur's  kingdom,  combine 
to  make  us  regret  this  exclusion.  But  Malory's  genius 
was  evidently  rather  an  unconscious  than  a  definitely 
critical  one.  And  though  the  exquisite  felicity  of  his 
touch  in  detail  is  established  once  for  all  by  compar- 
ing his  prose  narratives  of  the  Passing  of  Arthur  and 


THE    I\rATTER    OF    BRITAIN.  113 

the  parting  of  Lancelot  and  the  queen  with  the  verse  ^ 
from  which  he  ahiiost  beyond  question  directly  took 
both,  he  must  sometimes  have  been  bewildered  by  the 
mass  of  material  from  which  he  had  to  select,  and 
may  not  always  have  included  or  excluded  with 
equally  unerring  judgment. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  original  story  of  Geoffrey 
the  treason  of  Mordred  and  the  final  scenes  take  place 
The  Legend  he-  while  Arthur  is  warring  against  the  Eomans, 
cov^  dranrntic.  ygj.-^.  shortly  after  he  has  established  his 
sovereignty  in  the  Isle  of  Britain.  Walter,  or  Chres- 
tien,  or  whoever  it  was,  saw  that  such  a  waste  of  good 
romantic  material  could  never  be  tolerated.  The 
romance  is  never — it  has  not  been  even  in  the  hands 
of  its  most  punctilious  modern  practitioners  —  very 
observant  of  miserable  minutim  of  chronology ;  and 
after  all,  it  was  reasonable  that  Arthur's  successes 
should  give  him  some  considerable  enjoyment  of  his 
kingdom.  It  will  not  do  to  scrutinise  too  narrowly, 
or  we  should  have  to  make  Arthur  a  very  old  man  at 
his  death,  and  Guinevere  a  lady  too  elderly  to  leave 
any  excuse  for  her  proceedings,  in  order  to  accom- 
modate the  birth  of  Lancelot  (which  happened,  ac- 
cording to  the  Merlin,  after  the  king  came  to  the 
throne),  the  birth  of  Lancelot's  son  Galahad,  Galahad's 
life  till  even  the  early  age  of  fifteen,  when  knighthood 
was  then  given,  the  Quest  of  the  Sangreal  itself,  and 
the  subsequent  breaking  out  of  Mordred's  rebellion, 
consequent  upon  the  war  between  Lancelot  and 
Arthur   after   the   deaths   of   Agravain   and    Gareth. 

'  Le  Morte  Arthur  (ed.  Furuivall,  London,  1864),  1.  3400  s<iq. 
H 


114  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

But  the  allowance  of  a  golden  age  of  comparatively 
quiet  sovereignty,  of  feasts  and  joustings  at  Canielot, 
and  Caerleon,  and  Carlisle,  of  adventures  major  and 
minor,  and  of  the  great  Graal-quest,  is  but  a  moderate 
demand  for  any  romancer  to  make.  At  any  rate,  he 
or  they  made  it,  and  justified  the  demand  amply  by 
the  result.  The  contents  of  the  central  Arthurian 
story  thus  elaborated  may  be  divided  into  four  parts : 
1.  The  miscellaneous  adventures  of  the  several  knights, 
the  king  himself  sometimes  taking  share  in  them.  2. 
Those  of  Sir  Tristram,  of  which  more  presently.  3. 
The  Quest  of  the  Sangreal.  4.  The  Death  of  Arthur. 
Taking  these  in  order,  the  first,  which  is  the  largest 
in  bulk,  is  also,  and  necessarily,  the  most  difficult  to 
summarise  in  short  space.     It  is  sometimes 

stories  of  Ga- 

wain  and  other  Said  that  the  promiueut  figure  in  the  earlier 
knigMs.  storics  is  Gawaiu,  who  is  afterwards  by  some 

spite  or  caprice  dethroned  in  favour  of  Lancelot.  This 
is  not  quite  exact,  for  the  bulk  of  the  Lancelot  legends 
being,  as  has  been  said,  anterior  to  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century,  is  much  older  than  the  bulk  of  the 
Gawain  romances,  which,  owing  their  origin  to  English, 
and  especially  to  northern,  patriotism,  do  not  seem  to 
date  earlier  than  the  thirteenth  or  even  the  fourteenth. 
But  it  is  true  that  Gawain,  as  we  have  seen,  makes  an 
appearance,  though  no  very  elaborate  one,  in  the  most 
ancient  forms  of  the  legend  itself,  where  we  hear  noth- 
ing of  Lancelot ;  and  also  that  his  appearances  in  Merlin 
do  not  bear  anything  like  the  contrast  (similar  to  that 
afterwards  developed  in  the  Iberian  romance-cycle  as 
between  Galaor  and  Amadis)  which  other  authorities 


THE    MATTEli    OF    BRITAIN.  115 

make  between  him  and  Lancelot.^  Generally  speak- 
ing, the  knights  are  divisible  into  three  classes.  First 
there  are  the  older  knights,  from  Ulfius  (who  had  even 
taken  part  in  the  expedition  which  cheated  Tgraine) 
and  Antor,  down  to  Bedivere,  Lucan,  and  the  most 
famous  of  this  group,  Sir  Kay,  who,  alike  in  older 
and  in  later  versions,  bears  the  uniform  character  of 
a  disagreeable  person,  not  indeed  a  coward,  though  of 
prowess  not  equal  to  his  attempts  and  needs ;  but  a 
boaster,  envious,  spiteful,  and  constantly  provoking 
by  his  tongue  incidents  in  which  his  hands  do  not 
help  him  out  quite  sufficiently.-  Then  there  is  the 
younger  and  main  body,  of  whom  Lancelot  and 
Gawain  (still  keeping  Tristram  apart)  are  the  chiefs ; 
and  lastly  the  outsiders,  whether  the  "  felon  "  knights 
who  are  at  internecine,  or  the  mere  foreigners  who  are 
in  friendly,  antagonism  with  the  knights  of  the  "Eown- 
tabull." 

Of  these  the  chief  are  Sir  Palomides  or  Palamedes 
(a  gallant  Saracen,  who  is  Tristram's  unlucky  rival  for 
the  affections  of  Iseult,  while  his  special  task  is  the 
pursuit  of  the  Questing  Beast,  a  symbol  of  Slander), 
and  Tristram  himself. 

The  appearance  of  this  last  personage  in  the  Legend 
is  one  of  the  most  curious  and  interesting  points  in  it. 
Although  on  this,  as  on  every  one  of  such  points,  the 

^  Since  I  wrote  this  passage  I  have  leai-nt  with  pleasure  tliat  there 
is  a  good  chance  of  the  whole  of  the  Gawain  romances,  English  and 
foreign,  being  examined  together  by  a  very  competent  hand,  that  of 
Mr  I.  Gollancz  of  Christ's  College,  Cambridge. 

^  The  Welsh  passages  relating  to  Kay  seem  to  be  older  than  most 
others. 


116  EUKOPEAN   LITERATUEE,    1100-1300. 

widest  diversity  of  opinion  prevails,  an  impartial  ex- 
amination of  the  texts  perhaps  enables  us 

Sir  Tristram.  .        .  i         i  i  i 

to  obtain  some  tolerably  clear  views  on 
the  subject — views  which  are  helpful  not  merely  with 
reference  to  the  "  Tristan-saga  "  itself,  but  with  refer- 
ence to  the  origins  and  character  of  the  whole  Legend.^ 
There  cannot,  I  think,  be  a  doubt  that  the  Tristram 
story  originally  was  quite  separate  from  that  of 
Arthur.  In  the  first  place,  Tristram  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  that  patriotic  and  national 
resistance  to  the  Saxon  invader  which,  though  it 
died  out  in  the  later  legend,  was  the  centre,  and 
indeed  almost  reached  the  circumference,  of  the 
earlier.  In  the  second,  except  when  he  is  directly 
brought  to  Arthur's  court,  all  Tristram's  connections 
are  with  Cornwall,  Brittany,  Ireland,  not  with  that 
more  integral  and  vaster  part  of  la  hloie  Bretagnc  which 
extends  from  Somerset  and  Dorset  to  the  Lothians. 
When  he  appears  abroad,  it  is  as  a  Varangian  at 
Constantinople,  not  in  the  train  of  Arthur  fighting 
against  Eomans.  Again,  the  religious  part  of  the 
story,  which  is  so  important  in  the  developed  Ar- 
thurian Legend  proper,  is  almost  entirely  absent  from 
the  Tristram-tale,  and  the  subject  which  played  the 

^  Editions  :  the  French  Tristan,  edited  long  ago  by  F.  Michel,  but 
in  need  of  completion  ;  the  English  Sir  Tristrem  in  Scott's  well- 
known  issue,  and  re-edited  (Heilbronn,  1882),  with  excellent  taste  as 
well  as  learning,  by  Dr  Kolbing,  who  has  also  given  tlie  late  Icelandic 
version,  as  well  as  for  the  Scottish  Text  Society  (Edinburgh,  1886) 
by  Mr  George  P.  M"^Neill ;  Gottfried  of  Strasburg's  German  {v.  chap. 
vi. ),  ed.  Bechstein  (Leipzig,  1890).  Romania,  v.  xv.  (1886),  contains 
several  essays  on  the  Tristram  storj^. 


THE   MATTER   OF   BRITAIN.  117 

fourth  part  in  medieval  affections  and  interests  with 
love,  religion,  and  fighting — the  chase — takes  in  the 
Tristram  romances  the  place  of  religion  itself. 

But  the  most  interesting,  though  the  most  delicate, 
part  of  the  inquiry  concerns  the  attitude  of  this  episode 
His  story  almost  01"  brauch  to  lovc,  and  the  conclusion  to  be 
certainly  Celtic,  (jj-awu  as  wcll  from  that  attitude  as  from 
the  local  peculiarities  above  noticed,  as  to  the  national 
origin  of  Tristram  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  Artliur 
story  on  the  other.  It  has  been  said  that  Tristram's 
connections  with  what  may  be  roughly  called  Britain 
at  large — i.e.,  the  British  Islands  jj/^^.s  Brittany — are, 
except  in  his  visits  to  Arthur's  court,  entirely  with 
the  Celtic  parts — Cornwall,  Ireland,  Armorica — less 
with  Wales,  which  plays  a  strangely  small  part  in 
the  Arthurian  romances  generally.  This  would  of 
itself  give  a  fair  presumption  that  the  Tristram  story 
is  more  purely,  or  at  any  rate  more  directly,  Celtic 
than  the  rest.  But  it  so  happens  that  in  the  love 
of  Tristram  and  Iseult,  and  the  revenge  and  general 
character  of  Mark,  there  is  also  a  suffusion  of  colour 
and  tone  which  is  distinctly  Celtic.  The  more  recent 
advocates  for  the  Celtic  origin  of  romance  in  general, 
and  the  Arthurian  legend  in  particular,  have  relied 
very  strongly  upon  the  character  of  the  love  adven- 
tures in  these  compositions  as  being  different  from 
those  of  classical  story,  different  from  tliose  of  Frankish, 
Teutonic,  and  Scandinavian  romance ;  but,  as  it  seems 
to  them,  like  what  has  been  observed  of  the  early 
native  poetry  of  Wales,  and  still  more  (seeing  that 
the  indisputable  texts  are  older)  of  Ireland. 


118  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

A  discussion  of  this  kind  is  perhaps  more  than  any 
other  pcriculosce  2Jlcnum  opus  alece ;  but  it  is  too  im- 
portant to  be  neglected.  Taking  the  character  of  the 
early  Celtic,  and  especially  the  Irisli,  heroine  as  it  is 
given  by  her  champions — a  process  which  obviates  all 
accusations  of  misunderstanding  that  might  be  based 
on  the  present  writer's  confession  that  of  the  Celtic 
texts  alone  he  has  to  speak  at  second-hand — it  seems 
to  me  beyond  question  that  both  the  Iseults,  Iseult  of 
Ireland  and  Iseult  of  Brittany,  approach  much  nearer 
to  this  type  than  does  Guinevere,  or  the  Lady  of  the 
Lake,  or  the  damsel  Lunete,  or  any  of  Arthur's  sisters, 
even  jNIorgane,  or,  to  take  earlier  examples,  Igraine 
and  Merlin's  love.  So  too  the  peculiar  spitefulness 
of  Mark,  and  his  singular  mixture  of  tolerance  and 
murderous  purpose  towards  Tristram  ^  are  much  more 
Celtic  than  Anglo-French:  as  indeed  is  the  curious 
absence  of  religiosity  before  noted,  which  extends  to 
Iseult  as  well  as  to  Tristram.  We  have  no  trace  in 
Mark's  queen  of  the  fact  or  likelihood  of  any  such 
final  repentance  as  is  shown  by  Arthur's :  and  though 
the  complete  and  headlong  self-abandonment  of  Iseult 
is  excused  to  some  extent  by  the  magic  potion,  it  is 
of  an  "  all -for -love -and -the -world -well -lost"  kind 
which  finds  no  exact  parallel  elsewhere  in  the  legend. 
So  too,  whether  it  seem  more  or  less  amiable,  the  half- 
coquettish  jealousy  of  Guinevere  in  regard  to  Lancelot 
is  not  Celtic :    while  the  profligate  vindictiveness  at- 

^  It  is  fair  to  say  that  Mark,  like  Gawain,  appears  to  have  gone 
through  a  certain  process  of  blackening  at  the  hands  of  the  late 
romancers  ;  but  the  earliest  story  invited  this. 


THE   MATTEIi   OF   BRITAIN.  119 

tribiited  to  lier  in  Sir  Launfal,  and  only  in  Sir  Laiin- 
fal,  an  almost  undoubtedly  Celtic  offshoot  of  the 
Arthurian  Legend,  is  equally  alien  from  her  character. 
We  see  Iseult  planning  the  murder  of  Brengwain 
with  equal  savagery  and  ingratitude,  and  we  feel  that 
it  is  no  libel.  On  the  other  hand,  though  Tristram's 
faithfulness  is  proverbial,  it  is  an  entirely  different 
kind  of  faithfulness  from  that  of  Lancelot — flightier, 
more  passionate  perhaps  in  a  way,  but  of  a  less  steady 
passion.  Lancelot  would  never  have  married  Iseult 
the  White-handed. 

It  is,  however,  quite  easy  to  understand  how,  this 
Tristram  legend  existing  by  hypothesis  already  or 
being  created  at  the  same  time,  the  curious  centripetal 
and  agglutinative  tendency  of  mediaeval  romance 
should  have  brought  it  into  connection  with  that  of 
Arthur.  The  mere  fact  of  Mark's  being  a  vassal- 
king  of  Greater  Britain  would  have  been  reason 
enough ;  but  the  parallel  between  the  prowess  of 
Lancelot  and  Tristram,  and  between  their  loves  for 
the  two  queens,  was  altogether  too  temj)ting  to  be 
resisted.  So  Tristram  makes  his  appearance  in  Ar- 
thur's court,  and  as  a  knight  of  the  Round  Table,  but 
as  not  exactly  at  home  there,^ — as  a  visitor,  an  "  hon- 
orary member"  rather  than  otherwise,  and  only  an 
occasional  partaker  of  the  home  tournaments  and  the 
adventures  abroad  which  occupy  Arthur's  knights 
proper. 

The  origin  of  the  greatest  of  these,  of  Lancelot  him- 
self, is  less  distinct.  Since  the  audacious  imaginative- 
ness of  the  late  M.  de  la  Villemarque,  which  once,  I 


120  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

am  told,  brought  upon  him  the  epithet  " Faitssaire  !  " 
uttered   in  full  conclave   of   Breton   anti- 

Sir  Lancelot.  .         .  i   j_      i        j_    i  •  i      i 

quaries,  has  ceased  to  be  taken  seriously  by 
Arthurian  students,  the  old  fancies  about  some  Breton 
"  Ancel "  or  "  Ancelot "  have  been  quietly  dropped. 
But  the  Celticisers  still  cling  fondly  to  the  supposed 
possibility  of  derivation  from  King  Melvas,  or  King 
Maelgon,  one  or  other  of  whom  does  seem  to  have  been 
connected,  as  above  mentioned,  by  early  Welsh  tra- 
dition with  the  abduction  of  the  queen.  It  is,  how- 
ever, evident  to  any  reader  of  the  Charette  episode, 
whether  in  the  original  French  prose  and  verse  or  in 
Malory,  that  Meleagraunce  the  ravisher  and  Lancelot 
the  avenger  cannot  have  the  same  original.  I  should 
myself  suppose  Lancelot  to  have  been  a  directly 
and  natvirally  spontaneous  literary  growth.  The  ne- 
cessity of  a  love  -  interest  for  the  Arthurian  story 
being  felt,  and,  according  to  the  manner  of  the  time, 
it  being  felt  with  equal  strength  that  the  lover  must 
not  be  the  husband,  it  was  needful  to  look  about  for 
some  one  else.  The  merely  business  -  like  self  -  sur- 
render to  Mordred  as  the  king  de  facto,  to  the  "  lips 
that  were  near,"  of  Greoffrey's  Guanhumara  and  Laya- 
mon's  Wenhaver,  was  out  of  the  question ;  and  the 
part  of  Gawain  as  a  faithful  nephew  was  too  well 
settled  already  by  tradition  for  it  to  be  possible  to 
make  him  the  lover.  Perhaps  the  great  artistic  stroke 
in  the  whole  Legend,  and  one  of  the  greatest  in  all 
literature,  is  the  concoction  of  a  hero  who  should  be 
not  only 

"  Like  Paris  handsome,  and  like  Hector  brave  " 


THE   ]\rATTER    OF   BEITATN.  121 

but  more  heroic  than  Paris  and  more  interesting  than 
Hector,— not  only  a  "greatest  kniglit,"  but  at  once 
the  sinful  lover  of  his  queen  and  the  champion  who 
should  himself  all  but  achieve,  and  in  the  person  of 
his  son  actually  achieve,  the  sacred  adventure  of  the 
Holy  Graal.  If,  as  there  seems  no  valid  reason  to 
disbelieve,  the  hitting  upon  this  idea,  and  the  inven- 
tion or  adoption  of  Lancelot  to  carry  it  out,  be  the 
work  of  Walter  Mapes,  then  Walter  Mapes  is  one  of 
the  great  novelists  of  the  word,  and  one  of  the  greatest 
of  them.  If  it  was  some  unknown  person  (it  could 
hardly  be  Chrestien,  for  in  Chrestien's  form  the  Graal 
interest  belongs  to  Percevale,  not  to  Lancelot  or  G-ala- 
had),  then  the  same  compliment  must  be  paid  to  that 
person  unknown.  Meanwhile  the  conception  and  exe- 
cution of  Lancelot,  to  whomsoever  they  may  be  due, 
are  things  most  happy.  Entirely  free  from  the  fault- 
lessness  which  is  the  curse  of  the  classical  hero  ;  his 
unequalled  valour  not  seldom  rewarded  only  by  re- 
verses ;  his  merits  redeemed  from  mawkishness  by  his 
one  great  fault,  yet  including  all  virtues  that  are 
themselves  most  amiable,  and  deformed  by  no  vice 
that  is  actually  loathsome ;  the  soul  of  goodness  in 
him  always  warring  with  his  human  frailty ;  —  Sir 
Lancelot  fully  deserves  the  noble  funeral  eulogy 
pronounced  over  his  grave,  and  felt  by  all  the  elect 
to  be,  in  both  senses,  one  of  the  first  of  all  extant  pieces 
of  perfect  English  prose. 

But  the  virtues  which  are  found  in  Lancelot  emi- 
nently are  found  in  all  but  the  "  felon "  knights, 
differing  only  in  degree.      It  is   true    that   the   later 


122  EUROPEAN   LITERATUEE,    1100-1300. 

romances  and  compilations,  feeling  perhaps  the  neces- 
The  minor  ^ity  of  shaclc,  extend  to  all  the  sons  of  Lot 
haigiiis.  ^^^^  Maigausc,  cxcept  Gareth,  and  to  some 
extent  Gavvain,  the  unamiable  character  which  jNIordred 
enjoys  throughout,  and  which  even  in  the  Merlin  is 
found  showing  itself  in  Agravaine.  Ikit  Sir  Lamo- 
racke,  their  victim,  is  almost  Lancelot's  equal :  and 
the  best  of  Lancelot's  kin,  especially  Sir  Bors,  come 
not  far  behind.  It  is  entirely  untrue  that,  as  the  easy 
epigram  has  it,  tliey  all  "  hate  their  neighbour  and 
love  their  neighbour's  wife."  On  the  contrary,  except 
in  the  bad  subjects — ranging  from  the  mere  ruffianism 
of  Breuse  -  sans  -  Pitio  to  the  misconduct  of  Melea- 
graunce — there  is  no  hatred  of  your  neighbour  any- 
where. It  is  not  hatred  of  your  neighbour  to  be 
prepared  to  take  and  give  hard  blows  from  and  to 
him,  and  to  forgather  in  faith  and  friendship  before 
and  after.  And  as  to  the  other  and  more  delicate 
point,  a  large  majority  of  the  knights  can  at  worst 
claim  the  benefit  of  the  law  laid  down  by  a  very  pious 
but  indulgent  mediaaval  writer,^  who  says  that  if  men 
will  only  not  meddle  with  "  spouse  or  sib "  (married 
women  or  connections  within  the  prohibited  degrees), 
it  need  be  no  such  deadly  matter. 

It   may   be   desirable,   as   it    was   in   reference   to 
Charlemagne,  to  say  a  few  words  as  to  Arthur  him- 
self.     In   both    cases  there   is   noticeable 

Arthur.  /    ^  -i       ^  •  ^ 

(though  less  m  the  case  of  Arthur  than 
in  that  of  Charlemagne)  the  tendency  not  to  make 
the  king  blameless,  or  a  paragon  of  prowess :  and 
in  both  cases,  as  we  should  expect,  this  tendency  is 

1  Cursor  Mundi,  1.  2898. 


THE   MATTER   OF   BRITAIN.  123 

even  more  noticeable  in  the  later  versions  than  in  the 
earlier.  This  may  have  been  partly  due  to  the  aristo- 
cratic spirit  of  at  least  idealised  feudalism,  which 
gave  the  king  no  semi-divine  character,  but  merely 
a  human  primacy  inter  pares;  partly  also  to  the 
literary  instinct  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  had  dis- 
covered that  the  "  biggest "  personage  of  a  story  is 
by  no  means  that  one  who  is  most  interesting.  In 
Arthur's  very  first  literary  appearance,  the  Nennius 
passage,  his  personal  prowess  is  specially  dwelt  upon : 
and  in  those  parts  of  the  Merlin  group  which  probably 
represent  the  first  step  from  Geoffrey  to  the  complete 
legend,  he  slays  Saxons  and  Romans,  wrests  the  sword 
single  -  handed  from  King  Ryaunce,  and  so  forth,  as 
valiantly  as  Gawain  himself.  It  is,  however,  curious 
that  at  this  time  the  writers  are  much  less  careful 
than  at  a  later  to  represent  him  as  faithful  to  Guine- 
vere, and  blameless  before  marriage,  with  the  exception 
of  the  early  affair  with  Margause.  He  accepts  the 
false  Guinevere  and  the  Saxon  enchantress  very 
readily ;  and  there  is  other  scandal  in  which  the 
complaisant  Merlin  as  usual  figures.  But  in  the  ac- 
cepted Arthuriad  (I  do  not  of  course  speak  of  modern 
writers)  this  is  rather  kept  in  the  background,  while 
his  prowess  is  also  less  prominent,  except  in  a  few 
cases,  such  as  his  great  fight  with  his  sister's  lover. 
Sir  Accolon.  Even  here  he  never  becomes  the  com- 
plaisant wittol,  which  late  and  rather  ignoble  works 
like  the  CohwoUVs  Dauncc'^  represent  him  as  being: 
and  he  never  exhibits  the  slightest  approach  to  the 

^Printed  by  Hartshorne,  Ancient  Metrical  Talcs  (London,   1829), 
p.  209  ;  and  Hazlitt,  Eat-hj  Poimlar  Poetry  (London,  18G4),  i.  38. 


124  EUEOPEAN   LITERATUKE,    1100-1300. 

outbursts  of  almost  imbecile  wrath  which  characterise 
Charlemagne. 

Something  has  been  said  of  Guinevere  already. 
It  is  perhaps  hard  to  look,  as  any  English  reader  of 
our  time  must,  backward  through  the 
coloured  window  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Idylls  of  the  King  without  our  thoughts  of  the  queen 
being  somewhat  all'ected  by  it.  But  those  who  knew 
their  Malory  before  the  Idylls  appeared  escape  that 
danger.  Mr  Morris's  Guinevere  in  her  Defence  is 
perhaps  a  little  truer  than  Lord  Tennyson's  to  the 
original  conception  —  indeed,  much  of  the  delightful 
volume  in  which  she  first  appeared  is  pure  Extrait 
Arthurien.  But  the  Tennysonian  glosses  on  Guine- 
vere's character  are  not  ill  justified :  though  perhaps, 
if  less  magnificent,  it  would  have  been  truer,  both  to 
the  story  and  to  human  nature,  to  attribute  her  fall 
rather  to  the  knowledge  that  Arthur  himself  was  by 
no  means  immaculate  than  to  a  despairing  sense  of 
his  immaculateness.  The  Guinevere  of  the  original 
romances  is  the  first  perfectly  human  woman  in 
English  literature.  They  have  ennobled  her  unfaith- 
fulness to  Arthur  by  her  constancy  to  Lancelot,  they 
have  saved  her  constancy  to  Lancelot  from  being 
insipid  by  interspersing  the  gusts  of  jealousy  in  the 
matter  of  the  two  Elaines  which  play  so  great  a  part 
in  the  story.  And  it  is  curious  that,  coarse  as  both 
the  manners  and  the  speech  of  the  Middle  Ages  are 
supposed  to  have  been,  the  majority  of  these  romances 
are  curiously  free  from  coarseness.  The  ideas  might 
shock  Ascham's  prudery,  but  the  expression  is,  with 


THE   MATTER    OF    BRITAIN.  125 

the  rarest  exceptions,  scrupulously  adapted  to  polite 
society.  There  are  one  or  two  coarse  passages  in  the 
Merlin  and  the  older  Saint  Graal,  and  I  remember 
others  in  outside  branches  like  the  Chevalier  as  Deux 
Espees.  But  though  a  French  critic  has  detected  some- 
thing shocking  in  Le  Chevalier  d  la  Charctte,  it  re- 
quires curious  consideration  to  follow  him. 

The  part  which  the  Holy  Graal  plays  in  the  legend 

generally  is  not  the  least  curious  or  interesting  feature 

of  the  whole.      As  has  been  already  said 

The  Graal. 

more  than  once,  it  makes  no  figure  at  all  in 
the  earliest  versions :  and  it  is  consistent  with  this,  as 
well  as  with  the  general  theory  and  procedure  of 
romance,  that  when  it  does  appear  the  development 
of  the  part  played  by  it  is  conducted  on  two  more  or 
less  independent  lines,  which,  however,  the  later  com- 
pilers at  least  do  not  seem  to  think  mutually  exclusive. 
With  the  usual  reserves  as  to  the  impossibility  of  pro- 
nouncing with  certainty  on  the  exact  order  of  the 
additions  to  this  wonderful  structure  of  legend,  it  may 
be  said  to  be  probable,  on  all  available  considerations 
of  literary  probability,  that  of  the  two  versions  of  the 
Graal  story — that  in  which  Percival  is  the  hero  of  the 
Quest,  and  that  in  which  Galahad  occupies  that 
place — the  former  is  the  earlier.  According  to  this, 
which  commended  itself  especially  to  the  French  and 
German  handlers  of  the  story ,^  the  Graal  Quest  lies 

^  And  contrariwise  the  Welsh  Peredur  [Mabinocjion,  cd.  cit.,  81) 
has  only  a  possible  allusion  to  the  Graal  story,  while  the  English  Sir 
Percivale  {Thornton  Romances,  ed.  Halliwell,  Camden  Society,  1844) 
omits  even  this. 


126  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

very  much  outside  the  more  intimate  concerns  of  the 
Arthurian  court  and  the  reahn  of  Britain.  Indeed,  in 
the  latest  and  perhaps  greatest  of  this  school,  Wolfram 
von  Eschenbacli  {v.  chap,  vi.),  the  story  wanders  off 
into  uttermost  isles  of  fancy,  quite  remote  from  the 
proper  Arthurian  centres.  It  may  perhaps  be  con- 
ceded that  this  development  is  in  more  strict  accord- 
ance with  what  we  may  suppose  and  can  partly 
perceive  to  have  been  the  original  and  almost  purely 
mystical  conception  of  the  Graal  as  entertained  by 
Piobert  de  Borron,  or  anotlier — the  conception  in  which 
all  earthly,  even  wedded,  love  is  of  the  nature  of  sin, 
and  according  to  which  the  perfect  knight  is  only  an 
armed  monk,  converting  the  heathen  and  resisting  the 
temptations  of  the  devil,  the  world,  and  more  particu- 
larly the  flesh ;  diversifying  his  wars  and  preachings 
only  or  mainly  by  long  mystical  visions  of  sacred 
history  as  it  presented  itself  to  mediieval  imagination. 
It  is  true  that  the  genius  of  Wolfram  has  not  a  little 
coloured  and  warmed  this  chilly  ideal :  but  the  story 
is  still  conducted  rather  afar  from  general  human 
interest,  and  very  far  off  indeed  from  the  special 
interests  of  Arthur. 

Another  genius,  that  of  Walter  ]\Iap  (by  hypothesis, 
as  before),  described  and  worked  out  different  capabil- 
How  it  perfects  i^ics  ill  tlic  story.  By  the  idea,  simple,  like 
the  story.  most  idcas  of  gcuius,  of  making  Lancelot, 

the  father,  at  once  the  greatest  knight  of  the  Arima- 
thean  lineage,  and  unable  perfectly  to  achieve  the 
Quest  by  reason  of  his  sin,  and  Galahad  the  son,  in- 
heritor of  his  prowess  but  not  of  his  weakness,  lie  lias 


THE   MATTEIl    OF    BKITAIN.  127 

at  once  secured  the  success  of  the  Quest  in  sufficient 
accordance  with  the  original  idea  and  the  presence  of 
abundant  purely  romantic  interest  as  well.  And  at 
the  same  time  by  connecting  the  sin  which  disquali- 
fies Lancelot  with  tlie  catastrophe  of  Artlmr,  and  the 
achieving  of  the  Quest  itself  witli  the  weakening  and 
breaking  up  of  the  Eound  Table  (an  idea  insisted  upon 
no  doubt,  hj  Tennyson,  but  existent  in  the  originals), 
a  dramatic  and  romantic  completeness  has  been  given 
to  the  whole  cycle  which  no  other  collection  of  medi- 
aeval romances  possesses,  and  which  equals,  if  it  does 
not  exceed,  that  of  any  of  the  far  more  apparently 
regular  epics  of  literary  history.  It  appears,  indeed, 
to  have  been  left  for  Malory  to  adjust  and  bring  out 
the  full  epic  completeness  of  the  legend :  but  the  ma- 
terials, as  it  was  almost  superfluous  for  Dr  Sommer  to 
show  by  chapter  and  verse,  were  all  ready  to  his  hand. 
And  if  (as  that  learned  if  not  invariably  judicious 
scholar  tliinks)  there  is  or  once  was  somewhere  a  Suite 
of  Lancelot  corresponding  to  the  Suite  de  Merlin  of 
which  Sir  Thomas  made  such  good  use,  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  we  should  find  the  adjustment,  though 
not  the  expression,  to  some  extent  anticipated. 

At  any  rate,  the  idea  is  already  to  hand  in  the  orig- 
inal romances  of  our  present  period  ;  and  a  wonderfully 
Nature  of  thu  g^eat  and  perfect  idea  it  is.  Not  the  much 
perfection.  ^■^^^[  justly  praised  arrangement  and  poeti- 
cal justice  of  the  Oresteia  or  of  tlie  story  of  CEdipus 
excel  the  Arthuriad  in  what  used  to  be  called  "pro- 
priety" (which  has  nothing  to  do  with  prudishness)' 
wliile  both  are,  as  at  least  it  seems  to  me.  far  inferior 


128  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

in  varied  and  poignant  interest.  That  the  attainment 
of  the  Graal,  the  healing  of  the  maimed  king,  and  the 
fulfilling  of  the  other  "  weirds  "  which  have  lain  upon 
the  race  of  Joseph,  should  practically  coincide  with  the 
termination  of  that  glorious  reign,  with  which  fate  and 
metaphysical  aid  had  connected  them,  is  one  felicity. 
The  "  dolorous  death  and  departing  out  of  this  world  " 
in  Lyonnesse  and  elsewhere  corresponds  to  and  com- 
pletes the  triumph  of  Sarras.  From  yet  another  point 
of  view,  tlie  bringing  into  judgment  of  all  the  char- 
acters and  their  deeds  is  equally  complete,  equally 
natural  and  unforced.  It  is  astonishing  that  men  like 
Aschani,^  unless  blinded  by  a  survival  of  mediaeval  or 
a  foreshadowing  of  Puritan  prudery,  should  have  failed 
to  see  that  the  morality  of  the  Mortc  d' Arthur  is  as 
rigorous  as  it  is  unsqueamish.  Guinevere  in  her 
cloister  and  Lancelot  in  his  hermitage,  Arthur  fall- 
ing by  (or  at  any  rate  in  battle  against)  the  fruit  of 
his  incestuous  intercourse — these  are  not  exactly  en- 
couragements to  vice :  v/hile  at  the  same  time  the 
earlier  history  may  be  admitted  to  have  nothing  of 
a  crabbed  and  jejune  virtue. 

But  this  conclusion,  with  the  minor  events  which 
lead  up  to  it,  is  scarcely  less  remarkable  as  exhibiting 
in  the  original  author,  whoever  he  was,  a  sense  of  art, 
a  sense  of  finality,  the  absence  of  which  is  the  great 
blot  on  Romance  at  large,  owing  to  the  natural,  the 
human,  but  the  very  inartistic,  craving  for  sequels.  As 
is  well  known,  it  was  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the 

'  This  curious  outburst,  referred  to  before,  may  be  found  in  the 
Schoolmaster,  ed.  Arber,  p.  80,  or  ed.  Giles,  Worls  of  AscJiam,  iii.  159. 


THE   MATTER   OF   BEITAIN.  129 

world  for  a  niediteval  romancer  to  let  his  subject  go. 
He  must  needs  take  it  up  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration ;  and  the  interminable  series  of  Amadis  and 
Esplandian  stories,  which,  as  the  last  example,  looks 
almost  like  a  designed  caricature,  is  only  an  exagger- 
ation of  the  habit  which  we  can  trace  back  through 
Huon  of  Bordeaux  and  Guij  of  Warwick  almost  to  the 
earliest  chansons  de  geste. 

But  the  intelligent  genius  who  shaped  the  Arthuriad 
has  escaped  this  danger,  and  that  not  merely  by  the 

No  sequel      simplc    proccss   whicli    Dryden,   with    his 

possible.  placid  irony,  somewhere  describes  as  "  leav- 
ing scarce  three  of  the  characters  alive."  We  have 
reached,  and  feel  that  we  have  reached,  the  conclusion 
of  the  whole  matter  when  the  Graal  has  been  taken 
to  Heaven,  and  Arthur  has  gone  to  Avalon.  Nobody 
wants  to  hear  anything  of  the  doubtless  excellent  Duke 
and  King  Constantine.  Sir  Ector  himself  could  not 
leave  the  stage  with  more  grace  than  with  his  great 
discourse  on  his  dead  comrade  and  kinsman.  Lance- 
lot's only  son  has  gone  with  the  Graal.  The  end  is 
not  violent  or  factitious,  it  is  necessary  and  inevitable. 
It  were  even  less  unwise  to  seek  the  grave  of  Arthur 
than  to  attempt  to  take  up  the  story  of  the  Arthurians 
after  king  and  queen  and  Lancelot  are  gone  each  to 
his  and  her  own  place,  after  the  Graal  is  attained,  af  cer 
the  Round  Table  is  dissolved. 

It  is  creditable  to  the  intelligence  and  taste  of  the 
average  mediaeval  romance-writer  that  even  he  did  not 
yield  to  his  besetting  sin  in  this  particular  instance. 
With  the  exception  of  Ysaie  le  Triste,  which  deals  with 

I 


130  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

the  fortunes  of  a  supposed  son  of  Tristan  and  Yseult, 
and  thus  connects  itself  with  the  most  outlying  part  of 
the  legend — a  part  which,  as  has  been  shown,  is  only 
hinged  on  to  it — I  cannot  remember  a  single  romance 
which  purports  to  deal  with  affairs  subsequent  to  the 
battle  in  Lyonesse.  The  two  latest  that  can  be  in  any 
way  regarded  as  Arthurian,  Arthur  of  Little  Britain 
and  Cleriodns,  avowedly  take  up  the  story  long  subse- 
quently, and  only  claim  for  their  heroes  the  glory  of 
distant  descent  from  Arthur  and  his  heroes.  Meliadus 
de  Lyonnois  ascends  from  Tristram,  and  endeavours  to 
connect  the  matter  of  Britain  with  that  of  France. 
Giron  le  Courtois  deals  with  Palamedes  and  the  earlier 
Arthurian  story ;  while  Pcrceforcst,  though  based  on 
the  Brut,  selects  periods  anterior  to  Arthur.^ 

There  was,  however,  no  such  artistic  constraint 
as  regards  episodes  of  the  main  story,  or  romans 
latin  d'avcnturcs  celebrating  the  exploits  of  single 
episodes,  knights,  and  connected  with  that  story  by 
a  sort  of  stock  overture  and  d^noHnnent,  in  the  first  of 
which  an  adventure  is  usually  started  at  Arthur's 
court,  while  the  successful  knight  is  also  accustomed 
to  send  his  captives  to  give  testimony  to  his  prowess 

^  I  have  a  much  less  direct  acquaintance  with  the  romances  men- 
tioned in  this  paragraph  than  with  most  of  the  works  referred  to  in 
this  book.  I  am  obliged  to  speak  of  tliem  at  second-hand  (chiefly 
from  Dunlojj  and  Mr  Ward's  invaluable  Catalogue  of  Romances,  vol.  i. 
1883  ;  vol.  ii.  1893).  It  is  one  of  the  results  of  the  unlucky  fancy  of 
scholars  for  re -editing  already  accessible  texts  instead  of  devoting 
themselves  to  anecdota,  that  work  of  the  first  interest,  like  Perccforest, 
for  instance,  is  left  to  black-letter,  which,  not  to  mention  its  costli- 
ness, is  impossible  to  weak  eyes  ;  even  where  it  is  not  left  to  manu- 
script, which  is  more  impossible  still. 


THE   MATTEK    OF   BRITAIN.  131 

in  the  same  place.  As  has  been  said  above,^  there  is 
a  whole  cluster  of  such  episodes — most,  it  would  seem, 
owing  their  origin  to  England  or  Scotland  —  which 
have  Sir  Gawain  for  their  chief  hero,  and  which,  at 
least  in  such  forms  as  survive,  would  appear  to  be 
later  than  the  great  central  romances  which  have 
been  just  noticed.  Some  of  these  are  of  much  local 
interest — there  being  a  Scottish  group,  a  group  which 
seems  to  centre  about  Cumbria,  and  so  forth — but  they 
fall  rather  to  the  portion  of  my  successor  in  this 
series,  who  will  take  as  his  province  Gmvccine  and.  the 
Green  Knight,  Lancelot  of  the  Laih,  the  quaint  allitera- 
tive Thornton  Morte  Arthur,  and  not  a  few  others. 
The  most  interesting  of  all  is  that  hitherto  untraced 
romance  of  Beaumaius  or  Gareth  (he,  as  Gawain's 
brother,  brings  the  thing  into  the  class  referred  to), 
of  which  Malory  has  made  an  entire  book,  and  which 
is  one  of  the  most  completely  and  perfectly  turned- 
out  episodes  existing.  It  has  j)oints  in  common  with 
Yvain-  and  others  in  common  with  Ifotnydonf  but  at 
the  same  time  quite  enough  of  its  own.  But  we  have 
no  French  text  for  it.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have 
long  verse  romances  like  Durmart  le  Gallois  *  (which 
both  from  the  title  and  from  certain  mystical  Graal 
passages  rather  connects  itself  with  the  Percevale 
sub-section) ;  and  the  Chevalier  as  Detox  UsjpSes,^  which 
belongs  to  the  Gawain  class.  But  all  these,  as  well 
as  the  German  romances  to  be  noticed  in  chap,  vi., 

^  See  pp.  114,  115  note.  -  See  above,  p.  102. 

3  Ed.  Weber,  Metrical  Romances,  Edinlnirgh,  1810,  ii.  279. 
*  Ed.  Sleugel.     Tubingen,  1873.  '"  Ed.  Forster.      Halle,  1877. 


132  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

distinguish  themselves  from  tlie  main  stories  analysed 
above  not  merely  by  their  obvious  and  almost  avowed 
dependence,  but  by  a  family  likeness  in  incident,  turn, 
and  phrase  from  which  those  main  stories  are  free. 
In  fact  the  general  fault  of  the  Romans  cTAventures  is 
that  neither  the  unsophisticated  freshness  of  the 
chanson  cle  geste,  nor  the  variety  and  commanding 
breadth  of  the  Arthurian  legend,  appears  in  them 
to  the  full.  The  kind  of  "  balaaiu,"  the  stock  repeti- 
tions and  expletives  at  which  Chaucer  laughs  in 
"  Sir  Thopas " — a  laugh  which  lias  been  rather  un- 
justly received  as  condemning  the  whole  class  of  Eng- 
lish romances — is  very  evident  even  in  the  French 
texts.  We  have  left  the  great  and  gracious  ways,  the 
inspiring  central  ideas,  of  the  larger  romance. 

It  may  perhaps  seem  to  some  readers  that  too  much 
praise  has  been  given  to  that  romance  itself.  Far  as 
The  Legend  ^^  ^^6,  not  merely  from  Ascham's  days, 
asaiuhoic.  jj^^  from  thosc  in  which  the  excellent 
Dunlop  was  bound  to  confess  that  "  they  [the  romances 
of  the  Eound  Table]  will  be  found  extremly  defective 
in  those  points  which  have  been  laid  down  as  con- 
stituting excellence  in  fictitious  narrative,"  that  they 
are  "improbable,"  full  of  "glaring  anachronisms  and 
geographical  blunders,"  "  not  well  shaded  and  dis- 
tinguished in  character,"  possessing  heroines  such  as 
"the  mistresses  of  Tristan  and  Lancelot"  [may  God 
assoil  Dunlop !]  who  are  "  women  of  abandoned  char- 
acter," "  highly  reprehensible  in  their  moral  tendency," 
"  equalled  by  the  most  insipid  romance  of  the  present 
day  as  a  fund  of  amusement."     In  those  days  even 


THE   MATTER   OF   BRITAIN.  133 

Scott  thought  it  prudent  to  limit  his  praise  of  Malory's 
book  to  the  statement  that  "  it  is  written  in  pure  old 
English,  and  many  of  the  wild  adventures  which  it 
contains  are  told  with  a  simplicity  bordering  on  the 
sublime."  Of  Malory^thanks  to  the  charms  of  his 
own  book  in  the  editions  of  Southey,  of  the  two 
editors  in  12mo,  of  Wright  and  of  Sir  Edward  Stra- 
chey,  not  to  mention  the  recent  and  stately  issues 
given  by  Dr  Sommer  and  Professor  Ehys — a  better 
idea  has  long  prevailed,  though  there  are  some 
gainsayers.  But  of  the  originals,  and  of  the  Legend 
as  a  whole,  the  knowledge  is  too  much  limited 
to  those  who  see  in  that  legend  only  an  oppor- 
tunity for  discussing  texts  and  dates,  origins  and 
national  claims.  Its  extraordinary  beauty,  and  the 
genius  which  at  some  time  or  other,  in  one  brain  or 
in  many,  developed  it  from  the  extremely  meagre 
materials  which  are  all  that  can  be  certainly  traced, 
too  often  escape  attention  altogether,  and  have 
hardly,  I  think,  in  a  single  instance  obtained  full 
recognition. 

Yet  however  exaggerated  the  attention  to  the 
Quellen  may  have  been,  however  inadequate  the  atten- 
Tiie  theories  tiou  to  the  actual  literary  result,  it  would  be 
of  its  origin,  r^^  failure  in  duty  towards  the  reader,  and 
disrespectful  to  those  scholars  who,  if  not  always  in 
the  most  excellent  way,  have  contributed  vastly  to 
our  knowledge  of  the  subject,  to  finish  this  chapter 
without  giving  something  on  the  question  of  origins 
itself.  I  shall  therefore  conclude  it  with  a  brief 
sketch  of  the  chief  opinions  on  the  subject,  and  with 


134  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

an  indication  of  those  to  which  many  years'  reading 
have  inclined  myself. 

The  theories,  not  to  give  them  one  by  one  as 
set  forth  by  individual  writers,  are  in  the  main  as 
follows : — 

I.  That   the  Legend  is,  not  merely  in  its  first  in- 
ceitic.       ception,  but   in  main  bulk,  Celtic,  either 
(a)  Welsh  or  {h)  Armorican. 

French.      II.  That  it  is,  cxccpt  in  the  mere  names 
and  the  vaguest  outline,  French. 

EngiisTi.  Ill,  That  it  is  English,  or  at  least  Anglo- 
Norman. 

IV.  That  it  is   very   mainly   a  "  literary "  growth, 

owing  something  to  the  Greek  romances,  and  not  to 

be  regarded  without   error   as  a  new  de- 

Literary. 

velopment  unconnected,  or  almost  uncon- 
nected, with  traditional  sources  of  any  kind. 

The  first  explanation  is  the  oldest.  After  being  for 
nearly  half  a  century  discredited,  it  has  again  found 
The  Celtic  ardcut  defcndeis,  and  it  may  seem  at  first 
theory.  sight  to  bc  the  most  natural  and  reason- 
able. Arthur,  if  he  existed  at  all,  was  undoubtedly  a 
British  hero  ;  the  British  Celts,  especially  the  Welsh, 
possess  beyond  all  question  strong  literary  affinities 
and  a  great  literary  performance,  and  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth,  the  father  of  the  whole  story,  expressly 
declares  that  he  took  it  from  a  book  written  in  the 
British  tongue.  It  was  natural  that  in  comparatively 
uncritical  ages  no  quarrel  should  be  made  with  this 
account.  There  were,  even  up  to  the  last  century,  I 
believe,    enthusiastic    antiquaries    who    affirmed,    and 


THE   MATTER   OF   BRITAIN.  135 

perhaps  believed,  that  they  had  come  across  the  very 
documents  to  which  Geoffrey  refers,  or  at  worst  later 
Welsh  transcripts  of  them.  But  when  the  study  of 
the  matter  grew,  and  especially  when  Welsh  literature 
itself  began  to  be  critically  examined,  uncomfortable 
doubts  began  to  arise.  It  was  found  impossible  to 
assign  to  the  existing  Welsh  romances  on  the  subject, 
such  as  those  published  in  the  Mabinogion,  a  date  even 
approacliing  in  antiquity  that  which  can  certainly  be 
claimed  by  the  oldest  French  texts :  and  in  more  than 
one  case  the  Welsh  bore  unmistakable  indications  of 
having  been  directly  imitated  from  the  French  itself. 
Further,  in  undoubtedly  old  Welsh  literature,  though 
there  were  {v.  supra)  references  to  Arthur,  they  were 
few,  they  were  very  meagre,  and  except  as  regards  the 
mystery  of  his  final  disappearance  rather  than  death, 
they  had  little  if  anything  to  do  with  the  received 
Arthurian  story.  ( )n  the  other  hand,  as  far  as  Brit- 
tany was  concerned,  after  a  period  of  confident  asser- 
tion, and  of  attempts,  in  at  least  doubtful  honesty,  to 
supply  what  could  not  be  found,  it  had  to  be  acknow- 
ledged that  Brittany  could  supply  no  ancient  texts 
whatever,  and  hardly  any  ancient  tradition.  These 
facts,  when  once  established  (and  they  have  never 
since  been  denied  by  competent  criticism),  staggered 
the  Celtic  claim  very  seriously.  Of  late  years,  how- 
ever, it  has  found  advocates  (who,  as  usual,  adopt 
arguments  rather  mutually  destructive  than  mutually 
confirmatory)  both  in  France  (M.  Gaston  Paris)  and 
in  Germany  (Herr  Zimmer),  while  it  has  been  passion- 
ately defended  in  England  by  Mr  Nutt,  and  with  9, 


136  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,   1100-1300. 

more  cautious,  but  perhaps  at  least  equally  firm, 
support  by  Professor  Ehys.  As  has  been  said,  these 
Neo-Celticists  do  not,  when  they  are  wise,  attempt  to 
revive  the  older  form  of  the  claims.  They  rest  theirs 
on  the  scattered  references  in  undoubtedly  old  Welsh 
literature  above  referred  to,  on  the  place-names  which 
play  such  an  undoubtedly  remarkable  part  in  the 
local  nomenclature  of  the  West- Welsh  border  in  the 
south-west  of  England  and  in  Cornwall,  of  Wales  less 
frequently,  of  Strathclyde  and  Lothian  eminently,  and 
not  at  all,  or  hardly  at  all,  of  that  portion  of  England 
which  was  early  and  thoroughly  subjected  to  Saxon 
and  Angle  sway.  And  the  liolder  of  them,  taking 
advantage  of  the  admitted  superiority  in  age  of  Irish 
to  AVelsh  literature  as  far  as  texts  go,  have  had  re- 
course to  this,  not  for  direct  originals  (it  is  admitted 
that  there  are  none,  even  of  parts  of  the  Legend  such 
as  those  relating  to  Tristram  and  Iseult,  which  are  not 
only  avowedly  Irish  in  place  but  Irish  in  tone),  but 
for  evidences  of  differential  origin  in  comparison  with 
classical  and  Teutonic  literature.  Unfortunately  this 
last  point  is  one  not  of  technical  "  scholarship,"  but 
of  general  literary  criticism,  and  it  is  certain  that  the 
Celticists  have  not  converted  all  or  most  students  in 
that  subject  to  their  view.  I  should  myself  give  my 
opinion,  for  whatever  it  may  be  worth,  to  the  effect 
that  the  tone  and  tendency  of  the  Celtic,  and  especi- 
ally the  Irish,  literature  of  very  early  days,  as  declared 
by  its  own  modern  champions,  are  quite  different  from 
those  of  the  romances  in  general  and  the  Arthurian 
Legend   in   particular.     Again,  though  the  other  two 


THE   MATTER   OF   BRITAIN.  137 

classes  of  evidence  cannot  be  so  ruled  out  of  court  as 
a  whole,  it  must  be  evident  that  they  go  but  a  very 
little  way,  and  are  asked  to  go  much  further.  If  any 
one  will  consult  Professor  Ehys's  careful  though  most 
friendly  abstract  of  the  testimony  of  early  Welsh  lit- 
erature, he  will  see  how  very  great  the  interval  is. 
When  we  are  asked  to  accept  a  magic  caldron  which 
fed  people  at  discretion  as  the  special  original  of  the 
Holy  Grail,  the  experienced  critic  knows  the  state  of 
the  case  pretty  well.^  While  as  to  the  place-names, 
though  they  give  undoubted  and  valuable  support  of  a 
kind  to  the  historical  existence  of  Arthur,  and  support 
still  more  valuable  to  the  theory  of  the  early  and  wide 
distribution  of  legends  respecting  him,  it  is  noticeable 
that  they  have  hardly  anything  to  do  with  our  Arthur- 
ian Legend  at  all.  They  concern — as  indeed  we  should 
expect — the  fights  with  the  Saxons,  and  some  of  them 
reflect  (very  vaguely  and  thinly)  a  tradition  of  con- 
jugal difficulties  between  Arthur  and  his  queen.  But 
unfortunately  these  last  are  not  confined  to  Artliurian 
experience ;  and,  as  we  have  seen,  Arthur's  fights  with 
the  Saxons,  except  the  last  when  they  joined  Mordred, 
are  of  ever-dwindling  importance  for  the  Eomance. 
Like  the  Celtic  theory,  the  French  has  an  engaging 
Tiie French  appcarancc  of  justice  and  probability,  and 
ciaiins.  j^  ]^g^g  pygj.  i}iq  Qeltic  tlic  Overwhelming  ad- 
vantage as  regards  texts.     That  all,  without  exception, 

^  For  these  magical  provisions  of  food  are  commonplaces  of  general 
popular  belief,  and,  as  readers  of  Major  Wingate's  book  on  the  Soudan 
will  remember,  it  was  within  the  last  few  j'ears  an  article  of  faith 
there  that  one  of  the  original  Mahdi's  rivals  had  a  magic  tent  which 
would  supply  rations  for  an  army. 


138  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

of  the  oldest  texts  in  which  the  complete  romantic 
story  of  Arthur  appears  are  in  the  French  language 
is  a  fact  entirely  indisputable,  and  at  first  blench  con- 
clusive. We  may  even  put  it  more  strongly  still  and 
say  that,  taking  positive  evidence  as  apart  from  mere 
assertion  (as  in  the  case  of  the  Latin  Graal-book),  there 
is  nothing  to  show  that  any  part  of  the  full  roman- 
tic story  of  Arthur,  as  distinguished  from  the  meagre 
quasi-historical  outline  of  Geoffrey,  ever  appeared  in 
any  language  before  it  appeared  in  French.  The  most 
certain  of  the  three  personal  claimants  for  the  origina- 
tion of  these  early  texts,  Chrestien  de  Troyes,  was  un- 
doubtedly a  Frenchman  in  the  wide  sense ;  so  (if  he 
existed)  was  Eobert  de  Borron,  another  of  them.  The 
very  phrase  so  familiar  to  readers  of  Malory,  "the 
French  book,"  comes  to  the  assistance  of  the  claim. 
And  yet,  as  is  the  case  with  some  other  claims 
which  look  irresistible  at  first  sight,  the  strength  of 
this  shrinks  and  dwindles  remarkably  when  it  comes 
to  be  examined.  One  consideration  is  by  itself  suf- 
ficient, not  indeed  totally  to  destroy  it,  but  to  make 
a  terrible  abatement  in  its  cogency ;  and  this  is,  that 
if  the  great  Arthurian  romances,  written  between  the 
middle  and  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  were  written 
in  French,  it  was  chiefly  because  they  could  not  have 
been  written  in  any  other  tongue.  Not  only  was  no 
other  language  generally  intelligible  to  that  public 
of  knights  and  ladies  to  which  they  were  addressed; 
not  only  was  no  other  vernacular  language  generally 
known  to  European  men  of  letters,  but  no  such  ver- 
nacular, except  Provenc^al,  had  attained  to  anything 


THE   MATTER    OF    BRITAIN.  139 

like  the  perfection  necessary  to  make  it  a  convenient 
vehicle.  Whatever  the  nationality  of  the  writer  or 
writers,  it  was  more  likely  that  he  or  they  would 
write  in  French  than  in  any  other  language.  And  as 
a  matter  of  fact  we  see  that  the  third  of  the  great 
national  claimants  was  an  Englishman,  while  it  is  not 
certain  that  liobert  de  Borron  was  not  an  English 
subject.  Nor  is  it  yet  formally  determined  whether 
Chrestien  himself,  in  those  parts  of  his  work  which 
are  specially  Arthurian,  had  not  Map  or  some  one  else 
before  him  as  an  authority. 

The  last  theory,  that  the  Legend  may  be  almost  if 
not  quite  sufficiently   accounted  for  as  a  legitimate 

,    ,        ,  descendant  of  previous  literature,  classical 

The  theory  of  ... 

general  liter-  and  otlicr  (including  (Oriental  sources),  has 
my  grow  i.  ^^^^^  ^|-^g  Icast  general  favourite.  As  orig- 
inally started,  or  at  least  introduced  into  English  lit- 
erary history,  by  Warton,  it  suffered  rather  unfairly 
from  some  defects  of  its  author.  Warton's  History  of 
English  Poetry  marks,  and  to  some  extent  helped  to 
produce,  an  immense  change  for  the  better  in  the  study 
of  English  literature :  and  he  deserved  the  contemptvi- 
ous  remarks  of  some  later  critics  as  little  as  he  did  the 
savai^e  attacks  of  the  half-lunatic  Eitson.  But  he  was 
rather  indolent ;  his  knowledge,  though  wide,  was  very 
desultory  and  full  of  scraps  and  gaps ;  and,  like  others 
in  his  century,  he  was  much  too  fond  of  hypothesis 
without  hypostasis,  of  supposition  without  substance. 
He  was  very  excusably  but  very  unluckily  ignorant  of 
what  may  be  called  the  comparative  panorama  of  Eng- 
lish and  European  literature  during  the  Middle  Ages, 


140  EUKOPEAN   LITE1;ATUEE,    1100-1300. 

and  was  apt  to  assign  to  direct  borrowing  or  imita- 
tion those  fresh  workings  up  of  the  eternal  donndes  of 
all  literary  art  which  presented  themselves.  As  the 
theory  has  been  more  recently  presented  with  far  ex- 
acter  learning  and  greater  judgment  by  his  successor, 
Mr  Courthope,^  it  is  much  relieved  from  most  of  its 
disabilities.  I  have  myself  no  doubt  that  the  Greek 
romances  (see  chap,  ix.)  do  represent  at  the  least  a  stage 
directly  connecting  classical  with  romantic  literature ; 
and  that  the  later  of  them  (which,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, were  composed  in  this  very  twelfth  century,  and 
must  have  come  under  the  notice  of  the  crusadeio),  viay 
have  exercised  a  direct  effect  upon  mediaeval  Eomance 
proper.  I  formed  this  opinion  more  than  twenty  years 
ago,  when  I  first  read  Hysminias  and  Hysminc  ;  and  I 
have  never  seen  reason  to  change  it  since.  But  these 
influences,  thougli  not  to  be  left  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, are  perhaps  in  one  respect  too  general,  and  in 
another  too  partial,  to  explain  the  precise  matter. 
That  the  Arthurian  Eomances,  in  common  with  all 
the  romances,  and  with  mediaeval  literature  gener- 
ally,  were  much  more  influenced  by  the  traditional 
classical  culture  tlian  used  at  one  time  to  be  thought, 
I  have  believed  ever  since  I  began  to  study  the  sub- 
ject, and  am  more  and  more  convinced  of  it.  The 
classics  both  of  Europe  and  the  East  played  a  part, 
and  no  small  part,  in  bringing  about  the  new  litera- 
ture ;  but  it  was  only  a  part. 

^  lu  his  History  of  English  Poetry,  vol.  i.,  London,  1895,  and  in  a 
subsequent  controversy  with  Mr  Nutt,  which  was  carried  on  in  the 
A  thenaum. 


THE   MATTER    OF    BllITAIN.  141 

If,  as  I  think  may  fairly  be  done,  the  glory  of 
the  Legend  be  chiefly  claimed  for  none  of  these, 
^,   ^    ,. ,       but  for  English  or  Anglo-Norman,  it  can 

The  English  or  o  .  , 

Anr/io-Norman  be  donc  in  no  Spirit  of  national  'plfonexia, 

pretensions.  ,       ,  -,  •  i         j  •  /•        n      j.i 

but  on  a  sober  consideration  or  all  the 
facts  of  the  case,  and  allowing  all  other  claimants 
their  fair  share  in  the  matter  as  subsidiaries.  From 
the  merely  a  iiriori  point  of  view  the  claims  of  Eng- 
land— that  is  to  say,  the  Anglo-Norman  realm — are 
strong.  The  matter  is  "  the  matter  of  Britain,"  and  it 
was  as  natural  that  Arthur  should  be  sung  in  Britain 
as  that  Charlemagne  should  be  celebrated  in  France. 
But  this  could  weigh  nothing  against  positive  balance 
of  argument  from  the  facts  on  the  other  side.  The 
balance,  however,  does  not  lie  against  us.  The  per- 
sonal claim  of  Walter  Map,  even  if  disproved,  would 
not  carry  the  English  claim  with  it  in  its  fall.  But  it 
has  never  been  disproved.  The  positive,  the  repeated, 
attribution  of  the  MSS.  may  not  be  final,  but  requires 
a  very  serious  body  of  counter-argument  to  upset  it. 
And  there  is  none  such.  The  time  suits ;  the  man's 
general  ability  is  not  denied;  his  familiarity  with 
Welshmen  and  Welsh  tradition  as  a  Herefordshire 
Marcher  is  pretty  certain ;  and  his  one  indisputable 
book  of  general  literature,  the  De  Nugis  CiiriaHuvi, 
exhibits  many — perhaps  all — of  the  qualifications  re- 
quired: a  sharp  judgment  united  with  a  distinct 
predilection  for  the  marvellous,  an  unquestionable 
piety  combined  with  man-of-the-worldliness,  and  a 
toleration  of  human  infirmities.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  point  out  the  critical  incompetence  of  those  who 


142  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

say  that  a  satirist  like  Map  could  not  have  written 
the  Quest  and  the  Mort.  Such  critics  would  make  two 
Peacocks  as  the  simultaneous  authors  of  Nightmare 
Ahhey  and  FJiododaphne — nay,  two  Shakespeares  to 
father  the  Sonnets  and  the  Merry  Wives.  If  any  one 
will  turn  to  the  stories  of  Gerbert  and  Meridian  a,  of 
Galo,  Sadius,  and  the  evil  queen  in  the  Nugm,  he 
will,  making  allowance  for  Walter's  awkward  Latin  in 
comparison  with  the  exquisite  French  of  the  twelfth 
century,  find  reasons  for  thinking  the  author  of  that 
odd  book  quite  equal  to  the  authorship  of  part — not 
necessarily  the  whole — of  the  Arthurian  story  in  its 
co-ordinated  form. 

Again,  it  is  distinctly  noticeable  that  the  farther 
the  story  goes  from  England  and  the  English  Con- 
tinental possessions,  the  more  does  it  lose  of  that 
peculiar  blended  character,  that  mixture  of  the  purely 
mystical  and  purely  romantic,  of  sacred  and  profane, 
which  has  been  noted  as  characteristic  of  its  perfect 
bloom.  In  the  Percevalc  of  Chrestien  and  his  con- 
tinuators,  and  still  more  in  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach, 
as  it  proceeds  eastwards,  and  into  more  and  more 
purely  Teutonic  regions,  it  absorbs  itself  in  the  Graal 
and  the  moonshiny  mysticism  thereto  appertaining. 
When  it  has  fared  southwards  to  Italy,  the  lawlessness 
of  the  loves  of  Guinevere  and  Iseult  preoccupies 
Southern  attention.  As  for  Welsh,  it  is  sufficient 
to  quote  the  statement  of  the  most  competent  of 
Welsh  authorities,  Professor  Ehys,  to  the  effect  that 
•'  the  passion  of  Lancelot  for  Guinevere  is  unknown 
to  Welsh  literature."     Now,  as  I  have  tried  to  point 


THE   MATTER   OF   BRITAIN.  143 

out,  the  passion  of  Lancelot  for  Guinevere,  blended  as 
it  is  with  the  quasi-historic  interest  of  Arthur's  con- 
quests and  the  religious  -  mystical  interest  of  the 
Graal  story,  is  the  heart,  the  life,  the  source  of  all 
charm  and  beauty  in  the  perfect  Arthur-story, 

1  should  think,  therefore,  that  the  most  reasonable 
account  of  the  whole  matter  may  be  somewhat  as 
follows,  using  imagination  as  little  as  possible,  and 
limiting  hypothesis  rigidly  to  what  is  necessary  to 
connect,  explain,  and  render  generally  intelligible  the 
historical  facts  which  have  been  already  summarised. 
And  I  may  add  that  while  this  account  is  not  very 
different  from  the  views  of  the  earliest  of  really 
learned  modern  authorities.  Sir  Frederic  Madden  and 
M.  Paulin  Paris,  I  was  surprised  to  find  how  much 
it  agrees  with  that  of  one  of  the  very  latest,  M.  Loth. 

In  so  far  as  the  probable  personality  and  exploits, 
and  the  almost  certain  tradition  of  such  exploits  and 

Attempted      such  a  personality,  goes,  there  is  no  reason 

hypothesis,  fgj.^  q^^^  much  reasou  against,  denying  a 
Celtic  origin  to  this  Legend  of  Arthur.  The  best 
authorities  have  differed  as  to  the  amount  of  really 
ancient  testimony  in  Welsh  as  to  him,  and  it  seems 
to  be  agreed  by  the  best  authorities  that  there  is 
no  ancient  tradition  in  any  other  branch  of  Celtic 
literature.  But  if  we  take  the  mentions  allowed  as 
ancient  by  sucli  a  careful  critic  as  Professor  Ehys, 
if  we  combine  them  with  the  place-name  evidence, 
and  if  we  add  the  really  important  fact,  that  of  the 
earliest  literary  dealers,  certain  or  probable,  with  the 
legend,   Geoffrey,   Layamon,   and   Walter   jNIap  were 


144  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

neighbours  of  Wales,  and  Wace  a  neighbour  of 
Brittany,  to  suppose  that  Arthur  as  a  subject  for 
romantic  treatment  was  a  figment  of  some  non- 
Celtic  brain,  Saxon  or  Norman,  French  or  English, 
is  not  only  gratuitous  but  excessively  unreasonable. 
Again,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the 
Merlin  legends,  in  at  least  their  inception,  were 
Celtic  likewise.  The  attempt  once  made  to  identify 
Merlin  with  the  well-known  "  Marcolf,"  who  serves 
as  Solomon's  interlocutor  in  a  mass  of  early  litera- 
ture more  or  less  Eastern  in  origin,  is  one  of  those 
critical  freaks  which  betray  an  utterly  uncritical  tem- 
perament. Yet  further,  I  should  be  inclined  to  allow 
no  small  portion  of  Celtic  ingredient  in  the  spirit, 
the  tendency,  the  essence  of  the  Arthurian  Legend. 
"We  want  something  to  account  for  this,  which  is 
not  Saxon,  not  Norman,  not  French,  not  Teutonic 
generally,  not  Latin,  not  Eastern ;  and  I  at  least 
am  unable  to  discover  where  this  something  comes 
from  if  it  is  not  from  the  Celtic  fringe  of  Eng- 
land and  of  Normandy. 

But  when  we  come  to  the  Legend  proper,  and  to  its 
most  important  and  most  interesting  characteristics, 
to  its  working  up,  to  that  extraordinary  development 
which  in  a  bare  half -century  (and  half  a  century, 
though  a  long  time  now,  was  a  very  short  one  seven 
hundred  years  ago)  evolved  almost  a  whole  library 
of  romance  from  the  scanty  faits  et  gcdcs  of  Arthur 
as  given  by  Geoffrey, — then  I  must  confess  that  I  can 
see  no  evidence  of   Celtic  forces  or  sources  havino: 


THE   MATTEi;    OF   BRITAIN.  145 

played  any  great  part  in  the  matter.  If  Caradoc  of 
Lancarvan  wrote  the  Vita  Gildcc  —  and  it  is  pretty 
certainly  not  later  than  his  day,  while  if  it  was  not 
written  by  him  it  must  have  been  written  by  some  one 
equally  well  acquainted  with  traditions,  Britisli  and 
Armorican,  of  St  Gildas — if  he  or  any  one  else  gave 
us  what  he  has  given  about  Arthur  and  Gildas  him- 
self, about  Arthur's  wife  and  Melvas,  and  if  traditions 
existed  of  Galahad  or  even  Percivale  and  the  Graal, 
of  the  Round  Table,  most  of  all  of  Lancelot, — why  in 
the  name  of  all  that  is  critical  and  probable  did  he 
not  give  us  more  ?  His  hero  could  not  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  matter,  the  legends  of  his  hero  could 
hardly  have  been  silent  about  them.  It  is  hard  to 
believe  that  anybody  can  read  the  famous  conclu- 
sion of  Geoffrey's  history  without  seeing  a  deliberate 
impishness  in  it,  without  being  certain  that  the  tale  of 
the  Book  and  the  Archdeacon  is  a  tale  of  a  Cock  and 
a  Bull.  But  if  it  be  taken  seriously,  how  could  the 
"  British  book  "  have  failed  to  contain  something  more 
like  our  Legend  of  Arthur  than  Geoffrey  has  given  us, 
and  how,  if  it  existed  and  gave  more,  could  Geoffrey 
have  failed  to  impart  it  ?  Why  should  the  Welsh,  the 
proudest  in  their  way  of  all  peoples,  and  not  the  least 
gifted  in  literature,  when  they  came  to  give  Arthurian 
legends  of  the  kind  which  we  recognise,  either  trans- 
late them  from  the  French  or  at  least  adapt  and  adjust 
them  thereto  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  the  supposition  that  the  fashion- 
ing, partly  out  of  vague  tradition,  partly  it  may  be 

K 


146  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

out  of  more  dej&nite  Celtic  tales  like  that  of  Tristram, 
partly  from  classical,  Eastern,  and  other  sources,  be- 
longs to  the  English  in  the  wide  sense — that  is  to 
say,  the  nation  or  nations  jsartly  under  English  rule 
proper,  partly  under  Scottish,  partly  under  that  of 
the  feudatories  or  allies  of  the  English  kings  as  Dukes 
of  Normandy — has  to  support  it  not  merely  the  argu- 
ments stated  above  as  to  the  concentration  of  the 
legend  proper  between  Troyes  and  Herefordshire, 
between  Broceliande  and  Northumbria,  as  to  MS. 
authority,  as  to  the  inveteracy  of  the  legend  in  Eng- 
lish,— not  only  those  negative  ones  as  to  the  certainty 
that  if  it  were  written  by  Englishmen  it  would  be 
written  in  French, — but  another,  which  to  the  com- 
parative student  of  literary  history  may  seem  strongest 
of  all. 

Here  first,  here  eminently,  and  here  just  at  the 
time  when  we  should  expect  it,  do  we  see  that  strange 
faculty  for  exhibiting  a  blend,  a  union,  a  cross  of 
characteristics  diverse  in  themselves,  and  giving  when 
blended  a  result  different  from  any  of  the  parts,  which 
is  more  than  anything  else  the  characteristic  of  the 
English  language,  of  English  literature,  of  English  poli- 
tics, of  everything  that  is  English.  Classical  rhetoric, 
French  gallantry,  Saxon  religiosity  and  intense  real- 
isation of  the  other  world.  Oriental  extravagance  to 
some  extent,  the  "  Celtic  vague "  —  all  these  things 
are  there.  But  they  are  all  co-ordinated,  dominated, 
fashioned  anew  by  some  thing  which  is  none  of 
them,  but  which  is  the  English  genius,  that  curious, 


THE   MATTEli   OF   BRITAIN.  147 

anomalous,  many  -  sided  genius,  which  to  those  who 
look  at  only  one  side  of  it  seems  insular,  provincial, 
limited,  and  which  yet  has  given  us  Sliakespeare,  the 
one  writer  of  the  world  to  whom  the  world  allows  an 
absolute  universality. 


148 


CHAPTEE    IV. 

ANTIQUITY   IN   ROMANCE. 

ODDITY    OF    THE    CLASSICAL    ROMANCE  —  ITS    IMPORTANCE  —  THE    TROT 

STORY THE    ALEXANDREID CALLISTHENES LATIN     VERSIONS — 

THEIR     STORY ITS     DEVELOPMENTS — ALBERIC    OF    BESANgON THE 

DECASYLLABIC   POEM — THE    GREAT    "ROMAN    D'aLIXANDRE  " — FORM, 

ETC. CONTINUATIONS — "  KING      ALEXANDER  " — CHARACTERISTICS — 

THE    TALE    OF    TROY — DICTYS   AND   DARES — THE    DARES    STORY — ITS 

ABSURDITY ITS     CAPABILITIES TROILUS     AND      BRISEIDA THE 

'  ROMAN    DE     TBOIE  '  —  THE    PHASES    OF    CRESSID  —  THE    '  HISTORIA 
TROJANA  ' — MEANING   OF   THE   CLASSICAL   ROMANCE. 

As  the  interest  of  Jeau  Bodel's  first  two  divisions  ^ 
differs   strikingly,  and  yet   represents,  in   each   case 
fi/ie  intimately  and  indispensably,  certain  sides 
Classical        of  the  medicTval  character,  so  also  does  that 
of  his  third.    This  has  perhaps  more  purely 
an  interest  of  curiosity  than  either  of  the  others.     It 
neither  constitutes  a  capital  division  of  general  litera- 
ture like  the  Arthurian  story,  nor  embodies  and  pre- 
serves a  single  long-past  pliase  in  national  spirit  and 
character,  like  the   chanso'tis  de  geste.     From  certain 
standpoints  of  the  drier  and  more  rigid  criticism  it  is 

^  See  note  2,  p.  26. 


ANTIQUITY   IN   ROjMANCE.  149 

exposed  to  the  charge  of  being  trifling,  ahnost  puerile. 
We  cannot  understand — or,  to  speak  with  extrenier 
correctness,  it  wouki  seem  that  some  of  us  cainiot 
understand — the  frame  of  mind  which  puts  Dictys 
and  Dares  on  the  one  hand,  Homer  on  the  other,  as 
authorities  to  be  weighed  on  equal  terms,  and  gravely 
sets  Homer  aside  as  a  very  inferior  and  prejudiced 
person  ;  which,  even  after  taking  its  Dictys  and  Dares, 
proceeds  to  supplement  them  with  entire  inventions 
of  its  own ;  which,  after  in  the  same  way  taking  the 
Pseudo-Callisthenes  as  the  authoritative  biographer 
of  Alexander,  elaborates  the  legend  with  a  wild  lux- 
uriance that  makes  the  treatment  of  the  Tale  of 
Troy  seem  positively  modest  and  sober ;  which  makes 
Thebes,  Julius  Cffisar,  anything  and  anybody  in  fabulous 
and  historical  antiquity  alike,  the  centre,  or  at  least  the 
nucleus,  of  successive  accretions  of  romantic  fiction. 

Nevertheless,  the  attractions,  intrinsic  and  extrinsic, 
of  the  division  are  neither  few  nor  small.  This  very 
Its  importance—  coufusiou,  as  it  sccms  uowadays,  tliis  extra- 
the  Troy  story,  ordinary  and  almost  monstrous  blending  of 
uncritical  history  and  unbridled  romance,  shows  one  of 
the  most  characteristic  sides  of  the  whole  matter,  and 
exhibits,  as  do  few  other  things,  that  condition  of 
mediaeval  thought  in  regard  to  all  critical  questions 
which  has  so  constantly  to  be  insisted  on.  As  in  the 
case  of  the  Arthurian  story,  the  matter  thus  presented 
caught  hold  of  the  mediaeval  imagination  with  a  remark- 
able grip,  aiid  some  of  the  most  interesting  literary  suc- 
cessions of  all  history  date  from  it.  Among  them  it  is 
almost  enough  to  mention  the  chain  of  names — Benoit 


150  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

de  Sainte-More,  Guide  Colonna,  ]5occaccio,  Chancer, 
Henryson — which  reaches  Shakespeare,  and  does  not 
cease  with  him,  all  successively  elaborating  the  history 
of  Troilus  and  Cressida,  The  lively  story,  first  formed, 
like  so  many  others,  by  the  French  genius,  and  well,  if 
rather  impudently,  copied  by  Colonna;  Boccaccio's  vivid 
Italian  Cressida ;  Chaucer's  inimitable  Pandarus,  the 
first  pleasing  example  of  the  English  talent  for  humor- 
ous portrayal  in  fiction  ;  the  wonderful  passage,  culniin- 
ating  in  a  more  wonderful  single  line,^  of  that  Dunferm- 
line  schoolmaster  whom  some  inconceivable  person  has 
declared  to  be  only  a  poet  to  "  Scotch  patriotism " ; 
the  great  gnomic  verses  of  Shakespeare's  Ulysses,  and 
the  various,  unequal,  sometimes  almost  repulsive, 
never  otherwise  than  powerful,  pageantry  of  that 
play,  which  has  been  perhaps  more  misjudged  than 
any  other  of  Shakespeare's, — all  these  spring  from  the 
Tale  of  Troy,  not  in  the  least  as  handed  down  by  the 
ancients,  but  tricked  and  frounced  as  the  Middle  Age 

1  "  Than  upon  him  scho  kest  up  baith  her  ene. 

And  with  ane  blunk  it  came  in  to  his  thoeht, 
That  he  sumtyme  hir  face  before  had  sene. 

Ane  sparke  of  lufe  than  till  his  hart  culd  spring, 

And  kendht  all  his  bodie  in  ane  fyre 
With  heit  fevir,  ane  sweit  and  trimbilhng 

Him  tuik  quhile  he  was  readie  to  expire  ; 

To  beir  his  scheild  his  breast  began  to  tyre : 
Within  ane  quhyle  he  changit  mony  hew. 
And  ncvcrtheles  not  ane  ane  uther  knnv." 

Laiug's  Poems  of  Henryson  (Edinburgh,  1865),  p.  93.  This  volume 
is  unfortunately  not  too  common ;  but  '  The  Testament  and  Com- 
plaint of  Cressid '  may  also  be  found  under  Chaucer  in  Chalmers's 
Poets  (i.  298  for  this  passage). 


ANTIQUITY  IN  ROMANCE.  151 

was  wont.  Xor  is  this  half-borrowed  interest  by  any 
means  the  only  one.  The  Cressid  story,  indeed,  does 
not  reach  its  full  attraction  as  a  direct  subject  of  liter- 
ary treatment  till  the  fourteenth  century.  But  the 
great  Alexander  cycle  gives  us  work  which  merely  as 
poetry  equals  all  but  the  very  best  mediaeval  work,  and 
its  importance  in  connection  with  the  famous  metre 
named  from  it  is  of  itself  capital. 

In  interest,  bulk,  and  importance  these  two  stories 

— the  Story  of  the  Destruction  of  Troy  and  the  Alex- 

andreid — far  outstrip  all  the  other  romances 

The  Alexnndreid.  .        .  ,  -i  i        i 

of  antiquity  ;  they  are  more  accessible  than 
the  rest,  and  have  been  the  subject  of  far  more  careful 
investigation  by  modern  students.  Little  has  been 
added,  or  is  likely  to  be  added,  in  regard  to  the 
Troy-books  generally,  since  M.  Joly's  introduction  to 
Benoit's  Bo^nan  cle  Troie  six-and-twenty  years  ago,^ 
and  it  is  at  least  improbable  that  much  will  be  added 
to  M.  Paul  Meyer's  handling  of  the  old  French  treat- 
ments of  the  Alexandreid  in  his  Alexandre  le  Grand 
dans  la  LitUrature  Frangaise  aic  Moyen  Age?  For  it 
must  once  more  be  said  that  the  pre-eminence  of 
French  over  other  literatures  in  this  volume  is  not 
due  to  any  crotchet  of  the  writer,  or  to  any  desire  to 
speak  of  what  he  has  known  pretty  thoroughly,  long, 
and  at  first-hand,  in  preference   to  that   which  he 

1  Lc  Roman  de  Troie.  Par  Benoit  de  Sainte  -  More.  Ed.  Joly. 
Paris,  1870. 

-  Paris,  1886.  The  number  of  monographs  on  this  subject  is,  how- 
ever, very  large,  and  I  should  like  at  least  to  add  Mr  Wallis  Budge's 
Alexander  the  Great  (the  Syriac  version  of  Callisthenes),  Cambridge, 
1889,  and  his  subsequent  Life  and  Exploits  of  Alexander, 


152  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

knows  less  thoroughly,  less  of  old,  and  in  parts  at 
second-hand.  It  is  the  simplest  truth  to  say  that  in 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  France  kept  the 
literary  school  of  Europe,  and  that,  with  the  single 
exception  of  Iceland,  during  a  part,  and  only  a  part, 
of  the  time,  all  the  nations  of  Europe  were  content 
to  do,  each  in  its  own  tongue,  and  sometimes  even  in 
hers,  the  lessons  which  she  taught,  the  exercises  which 
she  set  them.  That  the  scholars  sometimes  far  sur- 
passed their  masters  is  quite  true,  and  is  nothing 
unusual;  that  they  were  scholars  is  simple  fact. 

The  Alexander  story,  which  Mr  AVallis  Budge,  our 

chief  authority  (and  perhaps  the  chief  authority)  on 

the  Oriental  versions  of  it,  speaks  of  as  "  a 

Callisthcncs.     ,•,■,.■,■,■,■,  ■,  ■, 

book  which  has  had  more  readers  than  any 
other,  the  Bible  alone  excepted,"  is  of  an  antiquity 
impossible  to  determine  in  any  manner  at  all  certain. 
ISTor  is  the  exact  place  of  its  origin,  or  the  language  in 
which  it  was  originally  written,  to  be  pronounced 
upon  with  anything  like  confidence.  What  does  seem 
reasonably  sure  is  that  what  is  called  "  the  Pseudo- 
Callisthenes  " — that  is  to  say,  the  fabulous  biography 
of  the  great  king,  which  is  certainly  the  basis  of  all 
Western,  and  perhaps  that  of  most  Eastern,  versions 
of  the  legend — was  put  into  Greek  at  least  as  early  as 
the  third  century  after  Christ,  and  thence  into  Latin 
(by  "  Julius  Valerius  "  or  another)  before  the  middle 
of  the  fourth.  And  it  appears  probable  that  some  of 
the  Eastern  versions,  if  not  themselves  the  original 
(and  a  strong  fight  has  been  made  for  the  ^Ethiopic  or 
Old-Egyptian   origin  of  nearly  the  whole),  represent 


ANTIQUITY   IN   ROMANCE.  153 

Greek  texts  older  than  those  we  have,  as  well  as  in 
some  cases  other  Eastern  texts  which  may  be  older 
still.  Before  any  modern  Western  vernacular  handled 
the  subject,  there  were  Alexander  legends,  not  merely 
in  Greek  and  Latin,  not  merely  in  ^-Ethiopic  or  Coptic, 
but  in  Armenian  and  Syriac,  in  Hebrew  and  Arabic, 
in  Persian  and  perhaps  in  Turkish  :  and  it  is  possible 
that,  either  indirectly  before  the  Crusades,  or  directly 
through  and  after  them,  the  legend  as  told  in  the  West 
received  additions  from  the  East. 

As  a  whole,  however,  the  Pseudo-Callisthenes,  or 
rather  his  Latin  interpreter  Julius  Valerius,^  was  the 
main  source  of  the  mediasval  legend  of  Alexander. 
And  it  is  not  at  all  impossible  (though  the  old  vague 
assertions  that  this  or  that  media3val  characteristic  or 
development  was  derived  from  the  East  were  rarely 
based  on  any  solid  foundation  so  far  as  their  authors 
knew)  that  this  Alexander  legend  did,  at  second-hand, 
and  by  suggesting  imitation  of  its  contents  and 
methods,  give  to  some  of  the  most  noteworthy  parts 
of  mediaeval  literature  itself  an  Eastern  colouring,  per- 
haps to  some  extent  even  an  Eastern  substance. 

Still  the  direct  sources  of  knowledge  in  the  West 
were  undoubtedly  Latin  versions  of  the  Pseudo- 
Callisthenes,  one  of  which,  that  ascribed  to 

Latin  versions.  . 

Julius  Valerius,  appears,  as  has  been  said, 
to  have  existed  before  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century, 
while  the  other,  sometimes  called  the  Historia  de 
Prodiis,  is  later  by  a  good  deal.    Later  still,  and  repre- 

^  Most  conveniently  accessible  in  the  Teubner  collection,  ed.  Kiibler, 
Leipzig,  1888. 


154  EUEOPEAN  LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

senting  traditions  necessarily  different  from  and  later 
than  those  of  the  Callisthenes  book,  was  the  source  of 
the  most  marvellous  elements  in  the  Alexandreids  of 
the  twelfth  and  subsequent  centuries,  the  Iter  ad 
Pararlisum,  in  which  the  conquerer  was  represented 
as  having  journeyed  to  the  Earthly  Paradise  itself. 
After  this,  connected  as  it  was  with  dim  Oriental 
fables  as  to  his  approach  to  the  unknown  regions 
north-east  of  the  Caucasus,  and  his  making  gates  to 
shut  out  Gog,  there  could  be  no  further  difficulty,  and 
all  accretions  as  to  his  descent  into  the  sea  in  a  glass 
cage  and  so  forth  came  easily. 

Nor  could  they,  indeed,  be  said  to  be  so  very  different 
in  nature  from  at  least  the  opening  part  of  the  Callis- 
thenes version  itself.    This  starts  with  what 

Their  story.  ,  •      i  i       i  i  p 

seems  to  be  the  capital  and  oldest  part  ot 
tlie  whole  fabulous  story,  a  very  circumstantial 
account  of  the  fictitious  circumstances  of  the  birth  of 
Alexander.  According  to  this,  which  is  pretty  con- 
stantly preserved  in  all  the  fabulous  versions  of  the 
legend  (a  proof  of  its  age),  Nectanabus,  an  Egyptian 
king  and  magician,  having  ascertained  by  sortilege  (a 
sort  of  kriegs-sjnel  on  a  basin  of  water  with  wax  ships) 
that  his  throne  is  doomed,  quits  the  country  and  goes 
to  Macedonia.  There  he  tails  in  love  with  Olympias, 
and  during  the  absence  of  her  husband  succeeds 
by  magic  arts  not  only  in  persuading  her  that  the 
god  Ammon  is  her  lover,  but  to  some  extent  in  per- 
suading King  Philip  to  believe  this,  and  to  accept  the 
consequences,  the  part  of  Ammon  having  been  played 
of  course  by  Nectanabus  himself.     Bucephalus  makes 


ANTIQUITY   IX   EOMANCE.  155 

a  considerable  figure  in  tlie  story,  and  ISTectanabus 
devotes  much  attention  to  Alexander's  education — care 
which  the  Prince  repays  (for  no  very  discernible 
reason)  by  pushing  his  father  and  tutor  into  a  pit, 
where  the  sorcerer  dies  after  revealing  the  relation- 
ship. The  rest  of  the  story  is  mainly  occupied  by  the 
wars  with  Darius  and  Porus  (the  former  a  good  deal 
travestied),  and  two  important  parts,  or  rather  appen- 
dices, of  it  are  epistolary  communications  between 
Aristotle  and  Alexander  on  the  one  hand,  Alexander 
and  Dindymus  (Dandamis,  &c.).  King  of  the  P)rahmins, 
on  the  other.  After  his  Indian  adventures  the  king  is 
poisoned  by  Cassander  or  at  his  instigation. 

Into  a  framework  of  this  kind  fables  of  the  sort 
above  mentioned  had,  it  will  be  seen,  not  the  remotest 
Its  develop-    difficulty  in  fitting  themselves;  and  it  was 
■mcnts.  j^Q^  even  a  very  long  step  onward  to  make 

Alexander  a  Christian,  equip  him  with  twelve  peers, 
and  the  like.  But  it  has  been  well  demonstrated  by 
M.  Paul  Meyer  that  though  the  fictitious  narrative 
obtained  wide  acceptance,  and  even  admission  into 
their  historical  compilations  by  Vincent  of  P)eauvais, 
Ekkehard,  and  others,  a  more  sober  tradition  as  to  the 
hero  obtained  likewise.  If  we  were  more  certain  than 
we  are  as  to  the  exact  age  of  Quintus  Curtius,  it  would 
be  easier  to  be  certain  likewise  how  far  he  represents 
and  how  far  he  is  the  source  of  this  more  sober  tradi- 
tion. It  seems  clear  that  the  Latin  Alexandreis  of 
AV alter  of  Chatillon  is  derived  from  him,  or  from  a 
common  source,  rather  than  from  Valerius -Callis- 
thenes :   while  M.   Meyer    has   dwelt    upon  a    Latin 


156  EUKOPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

compilation  perhaps  as  old  as  the  great  outburst  of 
vernacular  romance  on  Alexander,  preserved  only  in 
English  MSS.  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  probably 
of  English  composition,  which  is  a  perfectly  common- 
sense  account  based  upon  historians,  of  various  dates 
and  values,  indeed,  ranging  from  Trogus  to  Isidore  of 
Seville,  but  all  historians  and  not  romancers. 

In  this  path,  however,  comparatively  few  cared  to 
tread.  The  attraction  for  the  twelfth  century  lay  else- 
where. Sometimes  a  little  of  the  more  authentic 
matter  was  combined  with  the  fabulous,  and  at  least 
one  instance  occurs  where  the  author,  probably  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  simply  combined,  with  a  frank 
audacity  which  is  altogether  charming,  the  popular 
epitome  of  Valerius  and  the  sober  compilation  just 
referred  to.  The  better,  more  famous,  and  earlier 
romantic  work  is  taken  straight  from,  though  it  by  no 
means  confines  itself  to,  Valerius,  the  Historia  cle 
Prodiis,  and  the  Iter  ad  Paradisum.  The  results  of 
this  handling  are  enormous  in  bulk,  and  in  minor 
varieties  ;  but  they  are  for  general  purposes  sufficiently 
represented  by  the  great  Roman  d'Alixandrc^  in 
French,  the  long  and  interesting  English  Kinrj/  Alis- 
aunder^  and  perhaps  the  German  of  Lamprecht.  The 
Icelandic  Alexander-Saga,  though  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  is  derived  from  Walter  of  Chatillon,  and  so 
reflects  the  comparatively  sober  side  of  the  story.  Of 
all  the  others  the  Boman  d'Alixandrc  is  the  most 
immediate  parent. 

1  Ed.  Michelant,  Stuttgart,  1846. 
-  Ed.  Weber,  op.  cit.  sup.,  i.  1-327. 


ANTIQUITY   IN   ROMANCE.  157 

There  was,  indeed,  an  older  French  poem  than  this 
— perhaps  two  such — and  till  the  discovery  of  a  frag- 
Aihericof  Mcnt  of  it  six  jears  after  the  publication 
Bcsanion.  jj^  1846  of  the  great  lloman  d'Alixandre 
itself  by  Michelant,  it  was  supposed  that  this  poem 
was  the  original  of  Lamprecht's  German  (or  of  the 
German  by  whomsoever  it  be,  for  some  will  have  it 
that  Lamprecht  is  simply  Lambert  li  Tors,  v.  infra). 
This,  however,  seems  not  to  be  the  case.  The  Alberic 
fragment  ^  (respecting  which  the  philologists,  as  usual, 
fight  whether  it  was  written  by  a  Besan^on  man  or 
a  BrianQon  one,  or  somebody  else)  is  extremely  inter- 
esting in  some  ways.  For,  in  the  first  place,  it  is 
written  in  octosyllabic  tirades  of  single  assonance  or 
rhyme,  a  very  rare  form ;  in  the  second,  it  is  in  a 
dialect  of  Provengal ;  and  in  the  third,  the  author 
not  only  does  not  follow,  but  distinctly  and  rather 
indignantly  rejects,  the  story  of  Nectanabus : — 

"  Dicunt  alqiiaut  estrobatour 
Quel  reys  fuel  filz  d'encantatour  : 
Mentent  fellon  losengetour  ; 
Mai  en  credreyz  nee  i;n  de  lour."  - 

But  the  fragment  is  unluckily  so  short  (105  lines 
only)  that  it  is  impossible  to  say  much  of  its  matter. 
Between  this  and  the  Alexandrine  poem  there  is 
another  version,^  curiously  intermediate  in  form,  date, 
ThBdecasyiiaUc  and  substaucc.  This  is  in  the  ordinary 
poem.  form  of  the  older,  but  not  oldest,  chansons 

de  geste,  decasyllabic  rhymed  tirades.     There  are  only 
about  eight  hundred  lines  of  it,  which  have  been  eked 

1  Ed.  Meyer,  op.  cit.,  i.  1-9.  -  LI.  27-30.  »  Meyer,  i.  25-59. 


158  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

out,  by  about  ten  thousand  Alexandrines  from  the 
later  and  better  known  poem,  in  the  MSS.  which 
remain.  The  decasyllabic  part  deals  with  the  youth 
of  Alexander,  and  though  the  author  does  not  seem, 
auy  more  than  Alberic,  to  have  admitted  the  scandal 
about  ISTectanabus,  the  death  of  that  person  is  intro- 
duced, and  altogether  we  see  a  Callisthenic  influence. 
The  piece  has  been  very  highly  praised  for  literary 
merit ;  it  seems  to  me  certainly  not  below,  but  not 
surprisingly  above,  the  average  of  the  older  chansons 
in  this  respect.  But  in  so  much  of  the  poem  as 
remains  to  us  no  very  interesting  part  of  the  subject 
is  attacked. 

The  great  romance  is  in  more  fortunate  conditions. 
We  have  it  not  indeed  complete  (for  it  does  not  go 
to  the  death  of  the  hero)  but  in  ample  measure :  and 
fortunately  it  has  for  full  half  a  century  been  acces- 
sible to  the  student.  AVhen  M.  Paul  Meyer  says  that 
this  edition  "  ne  saurait  fournir  une  base  suffisante  a 
une  ^tude  critique  sur  le  roman  d'Alixandre,"  he  is 
of  course  using  the  word  critique  with  the  somewhat 
arbitrary  limitations  of  the  philological  specialist. 
The  reader  who  cares  for  literature  first  of  all — for 
the  book  as  a  book  to  read — will  find  it  now  com- 
plete for  his  criticism  in  the  Stuttgart  version  of 
the  Alixand7'€,  though  he  cannot  be  too  grateful  to 
M.  Meyer  for  his  second  volume  as  a  whole,  and 
for  the  printing  in  the  first  of  Alberic,  and  the  deca- 
syllabic poem,  and  for  the  extracts  from  that  of  Thomas 
of  Kent,  who,  unlike  the  authors  of  the  great  Eomance, 
admitted  the  ISTectanabus  marvels  and  intrio[ues. 


ANTIQUITY   IN    KOMANCE.  159 

The  story  is  of  such  importance  in  mediaeval  litera- 
ture   that    some    account    of    the    chief   Englisli    and 
The  reat       French  embodiments  of  it  may  be  desir- 
Roman          able.      The   French   version,  attributed  in 

d'Alixandrc.       ,  i   •    i      i  i  •       i    j_i 

shares,  which  have  as  usual  exercised  the 
adventurous  ingenuity  of  critics,  to  two  authors,  Lam- 
bert li  Tors,  the  Crooked  (the  older  designation  "  Li 
Cors,"  the  Short,  seems  to  be  erroneous),  and  Alex- 
ander of  Bernay  or  Paris,  occupies  in  the  standard 
edition  of  Michelant  550  pages,  holding,  when  full  and 
with  no  blanks  or  notes,  38  lines  each.  It  must, 
therefore,  though  the  lines  are  not  continuously 
numbered,  extend  to  over  20,000.  It  begins  with 
Alexander's  childhood,  and  though  the  paternity  of 
Nectanabus  is  rejected  here  as  in  the  decasyllabic 
version,  which  was  evidently  under  the  eyes  of  the 
authors,  yet  the  enchanter  is  admitted  as  having  a 
great  influence  on  the  Prince's  education.  This  por- 
tion, filling  about  fifteen  pages,  is  followed  by  another 
of  double  the  length,  describing  a  war  with  Nicolas, 
King  of  Cesarea,  an  unhistorical  monarch,  who  in  the 
Callisthenic  fiction  insults  Alexander.  He  is  con- 
quered and  his  kingdom  given  to  Ptolemy.  Next 
Alexander  threatens  Athens,  but  is  turned  from  his 
wrath  by  Aristotle ;  and  coming  home,  prevents  his 
father's  marriage  with  Cleopatra,  who  is  sent  away 
in  disgrace.  And  then,  omitting  the  poisoning  of 
Philip  by  Olympias  and  her  paramour,  which  gen- 
erally figures,  the  Eomance  goes  straight  to  the 
war  with  Darius.  This  is  introduced  (in  a  manner 
which  made  a  great  impression  on  the  ]\Iiddle  Ages, 


160  EUROPEAN   LITER ATUEE,    1100-1300. 

as  appears  in  a  famous  passage  of  our  wars  with 
France')  by  an  insulting  message  and  present  of  child- 
ish gifts  from  the  Persian  king.  Alexander  marches 
to  battle,  bathes  in  the  Cydnus,  crosses  "  Lube "  and 
"  Lutis,"  and  passing  by  a  miraculous  knoll  which 
made  cowards  brave  and  brave  men  fearful,  arrives  at 
Tarsus,  which  he  takes.  The  siege  of  Tyre  comes 
next,  and  holds  a  large  place ;  but  a  very  much  larger 
is  occupied  by  the  Fiierres  cle  Gadres  ("Foray  of 
Gaza";,  where  the  story  of  the  obstinate  resistance  of 
the  Philistine  city  is  expanded  into  a  kind  of  separate 
chanson  de  geste,  occupying  120  pages  and  some  five 
thousand  lines. 

In  contradistinction  to  this  prolixity,  the  visit  to 
Jerusalem,  and  the  two  battles  of  Arbela  and  Issus 
mixed  into  one,  are  very  rapidly  passed  over,  though 
the  murder  of  Darius  and  Alexander's  vengeance  for 
it  are  duly  mentioned.  Something  like  a  new  begin- 
ning (thought  by  some  to  coincide  with  a  change  of 
authors)  then  occurs,  and  the  more  marvellous  part  of 
the  narrative  opens.  After  passing  the  desert  and 
(for  no  very  clear  object)  visiting  the  bottom  of  the 
sea  in  a  glass  case,  Alexander  begins  his  campaign 
with  Porus,  whom  Darius  had  summoned  to  his  aid. 
The  actual  figliting  does  not  take  very  long ;  but  there 
is  an  elaborate  description  of  the  strange  tribes  and 
other  wonders  of  India.  Porus  fights  again  in  Bactria 
and  is  again  beaten,  after  which  Alexander  pursues 
his  allies  Gog  and  Magog  and  shuts  them  off  by  his 
famous    wall.     An   arrangement   with    Porus   and   a 

^  See  Hanry  V.  for  the  tenuis-ball  incident. 


ANTIQUITY   IN   ROMANCE.  161 

visit  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  follow.  The  return 
is  begun,  and  marvels  come  thicker  and  thicker. 
Strange  beasts  and  amphibious  men  attack  the  Greeks. 
The  "Valley  from  which  None  Eeturn"  presents 
itself,  and  Alexander  can  only  obtain  passage  for 
his  army  by  devoting  himself,  though  he  manages 
to  escape  by  the  aid  of  a  grateful  devil  whom  he  sets 
free  from  bondage.  At  the  sea  -  shore  sirens  beset 
the  host,  and  numbers  perish ;  after  which  hairy 
horned  old  men  tell  them  of  the  three  magic  fountains 
— the  Fountain  of  Youth,  the  Fountain  (visible  only 
once  a -year)  of  Immortality,  and  the  Fountain  of 
Eesurrection.  Many  monstrous  tribes  of  enemies 
supervene;  also  a  Forest  of  Maidens,  kind  but  of 
hamadryad  nature  —  "  flower  -  women,"  as  they  have 
been  poetically  called.  It  is  only  after  this  experi- 
ence that  they  come  to  the  Fountain  of  Youth — the 
Fontaine  de  Jouvence  —  which  has  left  such  an  in- 
delible impression  on  tradition.  Treachery  had  de- 
prived Alexander  of  access  to  that  of  Immortality ; 
and  that  of  Eesurrection  has  done  nothing  but  restore 
two  cooked  fish  to  life.  But  after  suffering  intense 
cold,  and  passing  through  a  rain  of  blood,  the  army 
arrives  at  the  Jouvence,  bathes  therein,  and  all  be- 
come as  men  thirty  years  old.  The  fountain  is  a 
branch  of  the  Euphrates,  the  river  of  Paradise.  After 
this  they  come  to  the  Trees  of  the  Sun  and  Moon — 
speaking  trees  which  foretell  Alexander's  death. 
Porus  hears  of  this,  and  when  the  army  returns  to 
India  he  picks  a  quarrel,  and  the  two  kings  fight. 
Bucephalus  is  mortally  wounded ;   but  Porus  is  killed. 

L 


163  EUROPEAN   LITEEATUEE,    1100-1300. 

The  beginnings  of  treason,  plots  against  Alexander,  and 
the  episode  of  Queen  Candace  (who  has,  however, 
been  mentioned  before)  follow.  The  king  marches  on 
Babylon  and  soars  into  the  air  in  a  car  drawn  by 
griffins.  At  Babylon  there  is  much  fighting ;  indeed, 
except  the  Foray  of  Gaza,  this  is  the  chief  part  of  the 
book  devoted  to  that  subject,  the  Persian  and  Indian 
wars  having  been,  as  we  saw,  but  lightly  treated. 
The  Amazons  are  brought  in  next ;  but  fighting  re- 
commences with  the  siege  of  "  Def  ur."  An  enchanted 
river,  which  w^hosoever  drinks  he  becomes  guilty  of 
cowardice  or  treachery,  follows ;  and  then  we  return 
to  Tarsus  and  Candace,  that  courteous  queen.  Mean- 
while the  traitors  Autipater  and  "  Divinuspater  "  con- 
tinue plotting,  and  though  Alexander  is  warned 
against  them  by  his  mother  Olympias,  they  succeed 
in  poisoning  him.  The  death  of  the  king  and  the 
regret  of  his  Twelve  Peers,  to  whom  he  has  distributed 
his  dominions,  finish  the  poem. 

In  form  this  poem  resembles  in  all  respects  the 

chansons  de  geste.     It  is  written  in  mono-rhymed  laisses 

of  the  famous  metre  which  owes  its  name 

Form.  «6c.  .  . 

and  perhaps  its  popularity  to  the  use  of 
it  in  this  romance.  Part  of  it  at  least  cannot  be  later 
than  the  twelfth  century ;  and  though  in  so  long  a 
poem,  certainly  written  by  more  than  one,  and  in 
all  likelihood  by  more  than  two,  there  must  be  in- 
equality, this  inequality  is  by  no  means  very  great. 
The  best  parts  of  the  poem  are  the  marvels.  The 
fighting  is  not  quite  so  good  as  in  the  chansons  de  geste 
proper ;  but  the  marvels  are  excellent,  the  poet  relat- 


ANTIQUITY   IN   ROMANCE.  163 

ing  them  with  an  admirable  mixture  of  gravity  and 
complaisance,  in  spirited  style  and  language,  and 
though  with  extremely  little  attention  to  coherence 
and  verisimilitude,  yet  with  no  small  power  of  what 
may  be  called  fabulous  attraction. 

It  is  also  characteristic  in  having  been  freely  con- 
tinued.    Two  authors,  G-uy  of  Cambray  and  Jean  le 
Nevelois,  composed  a  Vengeance  Alexandre. 

Continuations.  i   •    i       i  i 

The  Vmux  du  Paon,  which  develop  some 
of  the  episodes  of  the  main  poem,  were  almost  as 
famous  at  the  time  as  Alixandre  itself.  Here  appears 
the  popular  personage  of  Gadiffer,  and  hence  was 
in  part  derived  the  great  prose  romance  of  Perce- 
forest.  Less  interesting  in  itself,  but  curious  as  illus- 
trating the  tendency  to  branch  up  and  down  to  all 
parts  of  a  hero's  pedigree,  is  Florimont,  a  very  long 
octosyllabic  poem,  perhaps  as  old  as  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, dealing  with  Alexander's  grandfather.^ 

The  principal  and  earliest  version  of  the  English 

Alexander   is    accessible    witliout   much   diihculty   in 

Weber's    Metrical   Romances   of  the   Thir- 

King  Alexander.  7     tt  i      /~i 

teenth,  Fourteenth,  and  Fifteenth  Centuries. 

Its  differences  from  the  French  original  are,  however, 

very  well  worth  noting.     That  it  only  extends  to  about 

eight  thousand  octosyllabic  lines  instead  of  some  twenty 

thousand  Alexandrines  is  enough  to  show  that  a  good 

deal  is  omitted  ;  and  an  indication  in  some  little  detail 

1  111  this  paragraph  I  agaiu  .speak  at  second-hand,  for  neither  the 
Vaux  nor  Florimont  is  to  my  knowledge  yet  in  print.  The  former 
seems  to  have  supplied  most  of  the  material  of  the  poem  in  fifteenth- 
century  Scots,  printed  by  the  Bannatyne  Club  in  1831,  and  to  be  re- 
printed, ill  another  version,  by  the  Scottish  Text  Society. 


164  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-13(X). 

of  its  contents  may  therefore  not  be  witliont  interest. 
It  should  be  observed  that  besides  this  and  the  Scots 
Alexander  (see  note  above)  an  alliterative  liomance  of 
Alexander  and  Dindymus  ^  exists,  and  perhaps  others. 
But  until  some  one  supplements  Mr  Ward's  admirable 
Catalogue  of  Bomances  in  the  British  Museum  with  a 
similar  catalogue  for  the  minor  libraries  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  give  complete 
accounts  of  matters  of  this  kind. 

Our  present  poem  may  be  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, and  is  pretty  certainly  not  long  posterior  to  it. 
It  begins,  after  the  system  of  English  romances,  with 
a  kind  of  moral  prologue  on  the  various  lives  and 
states  of  men  of  "  Middelerd."  Those  who  care  for 
good  literature  and  good  learning  are  invited  to  hear 
a  noble  geste  of  Alisaundre,  Darye,  and  Pore,  with 
wonders  of  worm  and  beast.  After  a  geographical 
prologue  the  story  of  Nectanabus,  "  Neptanabus,"  is 
opened,  and  his  determination  to  revenge  himself  on 
Philip  of  Macedon  explained  by  the  fact  of  that  king 
having  headed  the  combination  against  Egypt.  The 
design  on  Olympias,  and  its  success,  are  very  fully 
expounded.  Nectanabus  tells  the  queen,  in  his  first 
interview  with  her,  "  a  high  master  in  Egypt  I  was  " ; 
and  about  eight  liundred  lines  carry  us  to  the  death  of 
Nectanabus  and  the  breaking  of  "  Bursifal "  (Buce- 
phalus) by  the  Prince.  The  episodes  of  Nicolas  (who 
is  here  King  of  Carthage)  and  of  Cleopatra  follow  ;  but 
when  the  expedition  against  Darius  is  reached,  the 

^  E.KT.y.,  1878,  edited  by  Professor  Skeat. 


ANTIQUITY   IN   ROMANCE.  165 

mention  of  "  Lube  "  in  the  French  text  seems  to  have 
induced  the  English  poet  to  carry  his  man  by  Tripoli, 
instead  of  Cilicia,  and  bring  him  to  the  oracle  of 
Amnion — indeed  in  all  the  later  versions  of  the  story 
the  crossing  of  the  purely  fantastic  Callisthenic 
romance  with  more  or  less  historical  matter  is  notice- 
able. The  "Bishop"  of  Ammon,  by  the  way,  assures 
him  that  Philip  is  really  his  father.  The  insulting 
presents  follow  the  siege  of  Tyre ;  the  fighting  with 
Darius,  though  of  course  much  mediievalised,  is  brought 
somewhat  more  into  accordance  with  the  historic  ac- 
count, though  still  the  Granicus  does  not  appear ;  the 
return  to  Greece  and  the  capture  of  Thebes  have  their 
place ;  and  the  Athens-Aristotle  business  is  also  to 
some  extent  critically  treated.  Then  the  last  battle 
with  Darius  comes  in :  and  his  death  concludes  the 
first  part  of  the  piece  in  about  five  thousand  lines. 
It  is  noticeable  that  the  "  Foray  of  Gaza  "  is  entirely 
omitted ;  and  indeed,  as  above  remarked,  it  bears  every 
sign  of  being  a  separate  poem. 

The  second  part  deals  with  "  Pore  " — in  other  words, 
with  the  Indian  expedition  and  its  wonders.  These 
are  copied  from  the  French,  but  by  no  means  slavishly. 
The  army  is,  on  the  whole,  even  worse  treated  by 
savage  beasts  and  men  on  its  way  to  India  than  in 
the  original ;  but  the  handling,  including  the  Candace 
episodes,  follows  the  French  more  closely  than  in  the 
first  part.  The  fighting  at  "  Def ur,"  however,  like  that 
at  Gaza,  is  omitted ;  and  the  wilder  and  more  mys- 
tical and   luxuriant   parts  of   the   story  —  the   three 


166  EUKOPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

Fountains,  the  Sirens,  the  flower -maidens,  and  the 
like — are  either  omitted  likewise  or  handled  more 
prosaically.^ 

One  of  tlie  most  curious  things  about  this  poem 
is  that  every  division  —  divisions  of  whicli  Weber 
made  chapters — begins  by  a  short  gnomic  piece  in 
the  following  style  : — 

"  Day  .spryng  is  jolyf  tide. 
He  that  can  his  tyme  abyde, 
Oft  he  schal  his  wille  l)ytyde. 
Loth  is  grater  man  to  chyde." 

The  treatment  of  the  Alexander  story  thus  well  illus- 
trates one  way  of  the  mediseval  mind  with  such  things 
— the  way  of  combining  at  will  incongruous 
stories,  of  accepting  with  no,  or  with  little, 
criticism  any  tale  of  wonder  that  it  happened  to  find 
in  books,  of  using  its  own  language,  applying  its  own 
manners,  supposing  its  own  clothing,  weapons,  and  so 
forth  to  have  prevailed  at  any  period  of  history.  And 
further,  it  shows  how  the  geste  theory — the  theory  of 
working  out  family  connections  and  stories  of  ances- 
tors and  successors — could  not  fail  to  be  applied  to 
any  subject  that  at  all  lent  itself  to  such  treatment. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  this  division  of  the  romances 
of  antiquity  does  not  exhibit  the  more  fertile,  the  more 
inventive,  the  more  poetical,  and  generally  the  nobler 

^  Dr  Kolbing,  who  in  combination  of  philological  and  literary 
capacity  is  second  among  Continental  students  of  romance  only  to  M. 
Gaston  Paris,  appears  to  have  convinced  himself  of  the  existence  of  a 
great  unknown  English  poet  who  wrote  not  only  Alittaundre,  but 
Arthour  and  Merlin,  Richard  Caur  de  Lion,  and  other  pieces.  I 
should  much  like  to  believe  this. 


ANTIQUITY   IN   ROMANCE.  167 

traits  of  Middle-Age  literature.  As  will  have  been 
noted,  there  was  little  invention  in  the  later  versions, 
the  Callisthenic  fictions  and  the  Itc7'  ad  Paradisuin 
being,  with  a  few  Oriental  accretions,  almost  slavishly 
relied  upon  for  furnishing  out  the  main  story,  though 
the  "  Foray  of  Gaza,"  the  "  Vows  of  the  Peacock,"  and 
Floriviont  exhibit  greater  independence.  Yet  again 
no  character,  no  taking  and  lively  story,  is  elaborated. 
Nectanabus  has  a  certain  personal  interest :  but  he 
was  given  to,  not  invented  by,  the  Eomance  writers. 
Olympias  has  very  little  character  in  more  senses  than 
one :  Candace  is  not  worked  out :  and  Alexander  him- 
self is  entirely  colourless.  The  fantastic  story,  and 
the  wonders  with  which  it  was  bespread,  seem  to  have 
absorbed  the  attention  of  writers  and  hearers  ;  and 
nobody  seems  to  have  thought  of  any  more.  Perhaps 
this  was  merely  due  to  the  fact  that  none  of  the  more 
original  genius  of  the  time  was  directed  on  it :  perhaps 
to  the  fact  that  the  historical  element  in  the  story, 
small  as  it  was,  cramped  the  inventive  powers,  and 
prevented  the  romancers  from  doing  their  best. 

In  this  respect  the  Tale  of  Troy  presents  a  remark- 
able   contrast   to    its    great    companion  —  a    contrast 
The  Tale  of    pcrvadiug,  and  almost  too  remarkable  to 
^^°y-  be  accidental.     Inasmuch  as  this  part  of 

mediaeval  dealings  with  antiquity  connects  itself  with 
the  literary  history  of  two  of  the  very  greatest  writers 
of  our  own  country,  Chaucer  and  Shakespeare ;  with 
that  of  one  of  the  greatest  writers  of  Italy,  Boccaccio ; 
and  with  some  of  the  most  noteworthy  work  in  Old 
French,  it  has  been  thoroughly  and  repeatedly  inves- 


168  EUEOPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1:300. 

tigated.^  But  it  is  so  important,  and  so  characteristic 
of  the  time  with  which  we  are  dealing,  that  it  cannot 
be  passed  over  here,  thongh  the  later  developments 
must  only  be  referred  to  in  so  far  as  they  help  us  to 
understand  the  real  originality,  which  was  so  long,  and 
still  is  sometimes,  denied  to  medioeval  writers.  In  this 
case,  as  in  the  other,  the  first  striking  point  is  the  fact 
that  the  Middle  Ages,  having  before  them  what  may 
be  called,  mutatis  mutandis,  canonical  and  apocryphal, 
authentic  and  unauthentic,  ancient  and  not  ancient, 
accounts  of  a  great  literary  matter,  chose,  by  an  in- 
stinct which  was  not  probably  so  wrong  as  it  has 
sometimes  seemed,  the  apocryphal  in  preference  to 
the  canonical,  the  unauthentic  in  preference  to  the 
authentic,  the  modern  in  preference  to  the  ancient. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  Alexander-Saga,  their  oricrins 
were  the  Pseudo-Callisthenes  and  the  Iter  ad  Para- 
disum,  so  in  the  Tale  of  Troy  they  were  the  works  of 
two  persons  whose  literary  offspring  has  obtained  for 
them  an  amount  of  attention  transcending  to  a  quite 
ludicrous  extent  their  literary  merit — Dictys  Cretensis 
Dictys  and  ^^^  Darcs  Phrygius,  to  whom  may  perhaps 
Dares.  j^g  added  the  less  shadowy  personage  of  the 
grammarian  John  Tzetzes.  But,  as  in  the  other  case 
also,  they  were  by  no  means  confined  to  such  autho- 
rities. If  they  did  not  know  Homer  very  well  at  first- 
hand, they  did  know  him :  they  knew  Ovid  (who  of 

■*  It  would  be  unfair  not  to  mention,  as  having  preceded  that  of  M. 
Joly  by  some  years,  and  having  practically  founded  study  on  the  right 
lines,  the  handling  of  MM.  Moland  and  d'Hdricault,  Nouvellcs  Pram^aises 
du  QuatorzUme  Siicle  (Bibliotheque  Elzevirienne.     Paris,  1856). 


ANTIQUITY   IN   EOMANCE.  1G9 

course  represents  Homer,  though  not  Homer  only)  ex- 
tremely well :  and  they  knew  Virgil.  But  partly  from 
the  instinct  above  referred  to,  of  which  more  presently, 
partly  from  the  craze  for  tracing  Western  Europe  back 
to  the  "  thrice-beaten  Trojans,"  it  pleased  them  to  re- 
gard Homer  as  a  late  and  unhistorical  calumniator, 
whose  Greek  prejudices  made  him  bear  false  witness ; 
and  to  accept  the  pretensions  of  Dictys  and  Dares  to 
be  contemporaries  and  eyewitnesses  of  fact.  Dictys, 
a  companion  of  Idomeneus,  was  supposed  to  repre- 
sent the  Greek  side,  but  more  fairly  than  Homer ; 
and  Dares,  priest  of  Hephaestus,  the  Trojan. 

The  works  of  these  two  worthies,  which  are  both  of 
small  compass, — Dictys  occupies  rather  more  than  a 
hundred.  Dares  rather  more  than  fifty,  pages  of  the 
ordinary  Teubner  classics,^ — exist  at  present  only  in 
Latin  prose,  though,  as  the  Greeks  were  more  expert 
and  inventive  forgers  than  the  Eomans,  it  is  possible, 
if  not  even  highly  probable,  that  both  were,  and  nearly 
certain  that  Dictys  was,  originally  Greek  at  least  in 
language.  Dictys,  the  older  pretty  certainly,  is  intro- 
duced by  a  letter  to  a  certain  Quintus  Aradius  from 
Lucius  Septimius,  who  informs  "  his  Eufinus  "  and  the 
world,  with  a  great  deal  of  authority  and  learning, 
that  the  book  had  been  written  by  Dictys  in  Punic 
letters,  which  Cadmus  and  Agenor  had  then  made  of 
common  use  in  Greece ;  that  some  shepherds  found 
the  manuscript  written  on  linden-bark  paper  in  a  tin 
case  at  his  tomb  at  Gnossus ;  that  their  landlord  turn- 
ing the  Punic  letters  into  Greek  (which  had  always 

1  Ed.  Meister.     Leipzig,  1872-73. 


170  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

been  the  language),  gave  it  to  Nero  the  Emperor,  who 
rewarded  him  richly ;  and  that  he.  Septimius,  having 
by  chance  got  the  book  into  his  hands,  thought  it 
worth  while  to  translate  it  into  Latin,  both  for  the 
sake  of  making  the  true  history  known  and  "  ut  otiosi 
animi  desidiam  discuteremus."  The  Dares  volume  is 
more  ambitious,  and  purports  to  be  introduced  by  no 
less  a  person  than  Cornelius  Nepos  to  no  less  a  person 
than  Sallustius  Crispus,  and  to  have  been  "  faithfully 
translated  "  by  the  former  from  MS.  in  the  very  hand 
of  Dares,  which  he  found  at  Athens,  in  order  to  correct 
the  late  and  fabulous  authority  of  Homer,  who  actually 
makes  sjods  fioht  with  men ! 

It  will  be,  of  course,  obvious  to  the  merest  tyro 
in  criticism  that  these  prefaces  bear  "  forgery  " 
on  the  very  face  of  them.  The  first  is  only  one 
of  those  innumerable  variants  of  the  genesis  of  a 
fiction  which  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  so  pleasantly 
summarised  in  one  of  his  introductions ;  and  the 
phrase  quoted  about  animi  otiosi  desidiam  is  a  com- 
monplace of  mediaeval  bookroaking.  The  second, 
more  cleverly  arranged,  exposes  itself  to  the  question 
how  far,  putting  the  difficulty  about  writing  aside, 
an  ancient  Greek  MS.  of  the  kind  could  possibly 
have  escaped  the  literary  activity  of  many  centuries 
of  Athenian  wits  and  scholars,  to  fall  into  the  hands 
of  Cornelius  Nepos.  The  actual  age  and  origin  of 
the  two  have,  of  course,  occupied  many  modern 
scholars ;  and  the  favourite  opinion  seems  to  be  that 
Dictys  may  have  been  originally  written  by  some 
Greek  about  the  time  of  Nero  (the  Latin  translation 


ANTIQUITY   IN   EOMANCE.  171 

cannot  well  be  earlier  than  tlie  fourth  century  and  may 
be  much  later),  while  Dares  may  possibly 

The  Dares  story.  J    s.  J 

be  as  late  as  the  twelfth.  Neither  book 
is  of  the  very  slightest  interest  intrinsically.  Dictys 
(the  full  title  of  whose  book  is  Ephemcris  Belli 
Trojani)  is  not  only  the  longer  but  the  better 
written  of  the  two.  It  contains  no  direct  "  set "  at 
Homer ;  and  may  possibly  preserve  traits  of  some 
value  from  the  lost  cyclic  writers.  But  it  was  not 
anything  like  such  a  favourite  with  the  Middle  Ages 
as  Dares.  Dictys  had  contented  himself  with  be- 
ginning at  the  abduction  of  Helen ;  Dares  starts  his 
De  Excidio  Trojce  with  the  Golden  Fleece,  and  excuses 
the  act  of  Paris  as  mere  reprisals  for  the  carrying  off 
of  Hesione  by  Telamon.  Antenor  having  been  sent 
to  Greece  to  demand  reparation  and  rudely  treated, 
Paris  makes  a  regular  raid  in  vengeance,  and  so  the 
war  begins  with  a  sort  of  balance  of  cause  for  it  on 
the  Trojan  side.  Before  the  actual  fighting,  some 
personal  descriptions  of  the  chief  heroes  and  heroines 
are  given,  curiously  feeble  and  strongly  tinged  with 
mediaeval  peculiarities,  but  thought  to  be  possibly 
derived  from  some  similar  things  attributed  to  the 
rhetorician  Philostratus  at  the  end  of  the  third  cen- 
tury. And  among  these  a  great  place  is  given  to 
Troilus  and  "  Briseida." 

Nearly  half  the  book  is  filled  with  these  pre- 
liminaries, with  an  account  of  the  fruitless  embassy 
of  Ulysses  and  Diomed  to  Troy,  and  with  enumerating 
the  forces  and  allies  of  the  two  parties.  But  when 
Dares  gets  to  work  he  proceeds  with  a  rapidity  which 


172  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

maj  be  partly  due  to  the  desire  to  contradict  Homer. 
The  landing  and  death  of  Protesilaus,  avenged  to 
some  extent  by  Achilles,  the  battle  in  which  Hector 
slays  Patroclus  (to  whom  Dares  adds  Meriones),  and 
that  at  the  ships,  are  all  lumped  together;  and  the 
funerals  of  Protesilaus  and  Patroclus  are  simul- 
taneously celebrated.  Palamedes  begins  to  plot 
against  Agamemnon.  The  fighting  generally  goes 
much  against  the  Greeks  ;  and  Agamemnon  sues  for 
a  three  years'  truce,  which  is  granted  despite  Hector's 
very  natural  suspicion  of  svich  an  uncommonly  long 
time.  It  is  skipped  in  a  line ;  and  then,  the  fighting 
having  gone  against  the  Trojans,  they  beg  for  a  six 
months'  truce  in  their  turn.  This  is  followed  by  a 
twelve  days'  fight  and  a  thirty  days'  truce  asked 
by  the  Greeks.  Then  comes  Andromache's  dream, 
the  fruitless  attempt  to  prevent  Hector  fighting,  and 
his  death  at  the  hands  of  Achilles.  After  more  truces, 
Palamedes  supplants  Agamemnon,  and  conducts  the 
war  with  pretty  good  success.  Achilles  sees  Polyxena 
at  the  tomb  of  Hector,  falls  in  love  with  her,  demands 
her  hand,  and  is  promised  it  if  he  can  bring  about 
peace.  In  the  next  batch  of  fighting,  Palamedes  kills 
Deiphobus  and  Sarpedon,  but  is  killed  by  Paris ;  and 
in  consequence  a  fresh  battle  at  the  ships  and  the 
firing  of  them  takes  place,  Achilles  abstaining,  but 
Ajax  keeping  up  the  battle  till  (natural)  night.  Troilus 
then  becomes  the  hero  of  a  seven  days'  battle  followed 
by  the  usual  truce,  during  which  Agamemnon  tries  to 
coax  Achilles  out  of  the  sulks,  and  on  his  refusal 
holds  a  great  council  of  war.     When  next  tempus  pugnce 


ANTIQUITY   IN   KOMANCE.  173 

supervcnit  (a  stock  phrase  of  the  book)  Troilus  is  again 
the  hero,  wounds  everybody,  including  Agamemnon, 
Menelaus,  and  Dioiued,  and  very  reasonably  opposes  a 
six  months'  armistice  which  his  father  grants.  At  its 
end  he  again  bears  all  before  him  ;  Imt,  killing  too 
many  Myrmidons,  he  at  last  excites  Achilles,  who, 
though  at  first  wounded,  kills  him  at  last  by 
wounding  his  horse,  which  throws  him.  Memnon 
recovers  the  body  of  Troilus,  but  is  himself  killed. 
The  death  of  Achilles  in  the  temple  of  Apollo  (by 
ambush,  but,  of  course,  with  no  mention  of  the  unen- 
chanted  heel),  and  of  Ajax  and  Paris  in  single  fight, 
leads  to  the  appearance  of  the  Amazons,  who  beat  the 
GTreeks,  till  Penthesilea  is  killed  by  ISTeoptolemus. 
Antenor,  ^neas,  and  others  urge  peace,  and  on 
failing  to  prevail  with  Priam,  begin  to  parley  with 
the  Greeks.  There  is  no  Trojan  horse,  but  the 
besiegers  are  treacherously  introduced  at  a  gate  uhi 
extrinsecus  portam  equi  sculptum  caput  erat.  Antenor 
and  J^^neas  receive  their  reward;  but  the  latter  is 
banished  because  he  has  concealed  Polyxena,  who  is 
massacred  when  discovered  by  IN^eoptolemus.  Helenus, 
Cassandra,  and  Andromache  go  free :  and  the  book 
ends  with  the  beautifully  precise  statements  that  the 
war,  truces  and  all,  lasted  ten  years,  six  mouths,  and 
twelve  days ;  that  886,000  men  fell  on  the  Greek  side, 
and  676,000  on  the  Trojan ;  that  ^Eneas  set  out  in 
twenty-two  ships  ( "  the  same  with  which  Paris  had 
gone  to  Greece,"  says  the  careful  Dares),  and  3400 
men,  while  2500  followed  Antenor,  and  1200  Helenus 
and  Andromache. 


174  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

This  bald  summary  is  scarcely  balder  than  the  book 

itself,  which  also,  as  can  be  seen  from  the  summary, 

and   would   be  more   fully  seen    from  the 

Its  absurdity.    ,        ,        ,  , .  .  p  i   •      i 

book,  has  no  literary  merit  oi  any  kind. 
It  reads  more  like  an  excessively  uninspired  precis  of 
a  larger  work  than  like  anything  else — a  prScis  in 
which  all  the  literary  merit  has,  with  unvarying  in- 
felicity, been  omitted.  Nothing  can  be  more  childish 
than  the  punctilious  euhemerism  by  which  all  the 
miraculous  elements  of  the  Homeric  story  are  blinked 
or  explained  away,  unless  it  be  the  painstaking  endea- 
vour simply  to  say  something  different  from  Homer, 
or  the  absurd  alternation  of  fighting  and  truces,  in 
which  each  party  invariably  gives  up  its  chance  of 
finishing  the  war  at  the  precise  time  at  which  that 
chance  is  most  flourishing,  and  which  reads  like  a 
humorous  travesty  of  the  warfare  of  some  historic 
periods  with  all  the  humour  left  out. 

Nevertheless   it   is   not    really   disgraceful    to    the 

Eomantic  period  that  it  fastened  so  eagerly  on  this 

sorriest  of  illegitimate  epitomes.^     Very  few  persons 

at  that  time  were  in  case  to  compare  the 

Its  ca2)abilities.  .  t  e  r\     •  i 

literary  merit  of  Homer — even  that  of  Ovid 
and  Virgil — with  the  literary  merit  of  these  bald  pieces 
of  bad  Latin  prose.  Moreover,  the  supernatural  ele- 
ments in  the  Homeric  story,  though  very  congenial  to 
the  temper  of  the  Middle  Age  itself,  were  presented 
and  ascribed  in  such  a  fashion  that  it  was  almost 
impossible  for  that  age  to  adopt  them.     Putting  aside 

^  The  British  Museum  alone  (see  Mr  Ward's  Catalogue  of  Ronuitices, 
vol.  i.)  contains  some  seventeen  separate  MS8.  of  Dares. 


ANTIQUITY    IN   ROMANCE.  175 

a  certain  sentimental  cult  of  "Venus  la  deesse  d'amors," 
there  was  nothing  of  which  the  mediteval  mind  was 
more  tranquilly  convinced  than  that  "  Jubiter," 
"Appollin,"  and  the  rest  were  not  mere  fond  things 
vainly  invented,  but  actual  devils  who  had  got  them- 
selves worshipped  in  the  pagan  times.  It  was  impos- 
sible for  a  devout  Christian  man,  whatever  pranks  he 
might  play  with  his  own  religion,  to  represent  devils 
as  playing  the  part  of  saints  and  of  the  Virgin,  helping 
the  best  heroes,  and  obtaining  their  triumph.  Nor, 
audacious  as  was  the  faculty  of  "  transfer "  possessed 
by  the  media3val  genius,  was  it  easy  to  Christianise 
the  story  in  any  other  way.  It  is  perhaps  almost 
surprising  that,  so  far  as  I  know  or  remember,  no 
version  exists  representing  Cassandra  as  a  holy  and 
injured  nun,  making  Our  Lady  play  the  part  of  Venus 
to  ^neas,  and  even  punishing  the  sacrilegious  Diomed 
for  wounding  her.  But  I  do  not  think  I  have  heard 
of  such  a  version  (though  Sir  Walter  has  gone  near  to 
representing  something  parallel  in  Ivanlwc),  and  it 
would  have  been  a  somewhat  violent  escapade  for 
even  a  medieval  fancy. 

So,  with  that  customary  and  restless  ability  to 
which  we  owe  so  much,  and  which  has  been  as  a 
rule  so  much  slighted,  it  seized  on  the  negative 
capacities  of  the  story.  Dares  gives  a  wretched 
painting,  but  a  tolerable  canvas  and  frame.  Each 
section  of  his  meagre  narrative  is  capable  of  being 
worked  out  by  sufficiently  busy  and  imaginative  opera- 
tors into  a  complete  roman  d'aventures :  his  facts,  if 
meagre    and  jejune,  are   numerous.      The  raids  and 


176  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1 100-1300. 

reprisals  in  the  cases  of  Hesione  and  Helen  suited 
the  demands  of  the  time ;  and,  as  has  been  hinted, 
the  singular  interlardings  of  truce  and  war,  and  the 
shutting  up  of  the  latter  into  so  many  days'  hand-to- 
hand  fighting,  —  with  no  strategy,  no  care  for  com- 
munications, no  scientific  nonsense  of  any  kind, — were 
exactly  to  mediseval  taste. 

Above  all,  the  prominence  of  new  heroes  and  heroines, 
about  whom  not  very  much  was  said,  and  whose  gestes 
the  mediffival  writer  could  accordingly  fill  up  at  his 
own  will,  with  the  presentation  of  others  in  a  light 
different  from  that  of  the  classical  accounts,  was  a 
godsend,  Achilles,  as  the  principal  author  of  the  "  Ex- 
cidium  Trqjffi  "  (the  title  of  the  Dares  book,  and  after 
it  of  otliers),  must  be  blackened ;  and  though  Dares 
himself  does  not  contain  the  worst  accusations  of  the 
mediaeval  writers  against  the  unshorn  son  of  the  sea- 
goddess,  it  clears  the  way  for  them  by  taking  away 
the  excuse  of  the  unjust  deprivation  of  Briseis.  From 
this  to  making  him  not  merely  a  factious  partisan, 
but  an  unfair  fighter,  who  mobs  his  enemies  half  to 
death  with  Myrmidons  before  he  engages  them  him- 
self, is  not  far.  On  the  other  hand,  Troilus,  a  mere 
name  in  the  older  stories,  offers  himself  as  a  hero. 
Troilus  and  And  for  a  heroiue,  the  casual  mention  of 
BHseida.  q-^q  charms  of  Briseida  in  Dares  started 
the  required  game.  Helen  was  too  puzzling,  as  well 
as  too  Greek ;  Andromache  only  a  faithful  wife ; 
Cassandra  a  scolding  sorceress ;  Polyxena  a  victim. 
Briseida  had  almost  a  clear  record,  as  after  the  con- 
fusion with  Chryseis  (to  be  altered   in  name  after- 


ANTIQUITY    IN    ROMANCE.  177 

wards)  there  was  very  little  personality  left  in  her, 
and  she  could  for  that  very  reason  be  dealt  with  as 
the  romancers  pleased. 

In  the  subsequent  and  vernacular  handling  of  the 
story  the  same  difference  of  alternation  is  at  first  per- 
ceived as  that  which  appears  in  the  Alexander  legend. 
The  sobriety  of  Gautier  of  Chatillon's  Alexandreis  is 
matched  and  its  Latinity  surpassed  by  the  Bellum 
Trojanum  of  our  countryman  Joseph  of  Exeter,  who 
was  long  and  justly  praised  as  about  the  best  mediaeval 
writer  of  classical  Latin  verse.  But  this  neighbour- 
hood of  the  streams  of  history  and  fiction  ceases  much 
earlier  in  the  Trojan  case,  and  for  very  obvious  reasons. 
The  temperament  of  mediteval  poets  urged  them  to 
fill  in  and  fill  out :  the  structure  of  the  Daretic  epi- 
tome invited  them  to  do  so :  and  they  very  shortly 
did  it. 

After  some  controversy,  the  credit  of  first  "  romanc- 
ing" the  Tale  of  Troy  has  been,  it  would  seem  justly 

Tfec  Roman    ^^d  finally,  assigned  to  Benoit  de  Sainte- 

deTroie.  Morc,  Bcuoit,  whose  flourishing  time  was 
about  1160,  who  was  a  contemporary  and  rival  of 
Wace,  and  who  wrote  a  chronicle  of  Normandy  even 
longer  than  his  Troy -book,  composed  the  latter  in 
more  than  thirty  thousand  octosyllabic  lines,  an  ex- 
pansion of  the  fifty  pages  of  Dares,  which  stands 
perhaps  almost  alone  even  among  the  numerous  sim- 
ilar feats  of  mediasval  bards.  He  has  helped  himself 
freely  with  matter  from  Dictys  towards  the  end  of 
his  work ;  but,  as  we  have  seen,  even  this  reinforce- 
ment could  not  be  great  in  bulk.     Expansion,  however, 

M 


178  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

SO  difficult  to  some  writers,  was  never  in  the  least  a 
stumbling  -  block  to  the  trouvere.  It  was  rather  a 
bottomless  pit  into  which  he  fell,  traversing  in  his 
fall  lines  and  pages  with  endless  alacrity  of  sinning. 
Not  that  Benoit  is  by  any  means  a  person  to  be 
contemptuously  spoken  of.  In  the  first  place,  as  we 
shall  see  presently,  he  was  for  many  hundred  years 
completely  and  rather  impudently  robbed  of  his  fame ; 
in  the  second,  he  is  the  literary  ancestor  of  far  greater 
men  than  himself ;  and  in  the  third,  his  verse,  though 
not  free  from  the  besetting  sin  of  its  kind,  and  especi- 
ally of  the  octosyllabic  variety — the  sin  of  smooth  but 
insignificant  fluency — is  always  pleasant,  and  some- 
times picturesque.  Still  there  is  no  doubt  that  at 
present  the  second  claim  is  the  strongest  with  us ; 
and  that  if  Benoit  de  Sainte-More  had  not,  through 
his  plagiarist  Colonna,  been  the  original  of  Boccaccio 
and  Chaucer  and  Shakespeare,  he  would  require  little 
more  than  a  bare  mention  here. 

Dares,  as  we  have  seen,  mentions  Briseida,  and 
extols  her  beauty  and  charm :  she  was,  he  says, 
The  phases  of  "  bcautiful,  not  of  lofty  stature,  fair,  her 
Cressid.  j^^^jj,  yellow  and  silky,  her  eyebrows  joined, 
her  eyes  lively,  her  body  well  proportioned,  kind, 
affable,  modest,  of  a  simple  mind,  and  pious."  He 
also  mightily  extols  Troilus ;  but  he  does  not  intimate 
any  special  connection  between  the  two,  or  tell  the 
story  of  "  Cressid,"  which  indeed  his  followers  elabor- 
ated in  terms  not  altogether  consistent  with  some  of 
the  above  laudatory  epithets.  Tzetzes,  who  with  some 
others  gives  her  the  alternative  name  of  Hippodamia, 


ANTIQUITY   IN   EOMANCE.  "179 

alters  her  considerably,  and  assigns  to  her  tall  stature, 
a  white  complexion,  black  hair,  as  well  as  specially 
comely  breasts,  cheeks,  and  nose,  skill  in  dress,  a 
pleasant  smile,  but  a  distinct  tendency  to  "  arrogance." 
Both  these  writers,  however,  with  Joseph  of  Exeter 
and  others,  seem  to  be  thinking  merely  of  the  Briseis 
whom  we  know  from  Homer  as  the  mistress  of  Achilles, 
and  do  not  connect  her  with  Calchas,  much  less  with 
Troilus.  What  may  be  said  with  some  confidence  is 
that  the  confusion  of  Briseida  with  the  daughter  of 
Calchas  and  the  assignment  of  her  to  Troilus  as  his 
love  originated  with  Benoit  de  Sainte-More.  But  we 
must  perhaps  hesitate  a  little  before  assigning  to  him 
quite  so  much  credit  as  has  sometimes  been  allowed 
him.  Long  before  Shakespeare  received  the  story  in  its 
full  development  (for  though  he  does  not  carry  it  to 
the  bitter  end  in  Troilus  omcI  Cressida  itself,  the  allu- 
sion to  the  "  lazar  kite  of  Cressid's  kind  "  in  Henry  V. 
shows  that  he  knew  it)  it  had  reached  that  complete- 
ness through  the  hands  of  Boccaccio,  Chaucer,  and 
Henryson,  the  least  of  whom  was  capable  of  turning 
a  comparatively  barren  donnde  into  a  rich  possession, 
and  who  as  a  matter  of  fact  each  added  much.  We  do 
not  find  in  the  Norman  trouvhre,  and  it  would  be  rather 
wonderful  if  we  did  find,  the  gay  variety  of  the  Filos- 
trato  and  its  vivid  picture  of  Cressid  as  merely  passion- 
ate, Chaucer's  admirable  Pandarus  and  his  skilfully 
blended  heroine,  or  the  infinite  pathos  of  Henryson's 
final  interview.  Still,  all  this  great  and  moving  ro- 
mance would  have  been  impossible  without  the  idea 
of  Cressid's  successive  sojourn  in  Troy  and  the  Greek 


180  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

camp,  and  of  her  successive  courtship  by  Troihis  and 
by  Diomed.  And  this  Benoit  really  seems  to  have 
thought  of  first.  His  motives  for  devising  it  have 
been  rather  idly  inquired  into.  For  us  it  shall  be 
sufficient  that  he  did  devise  it. 

By  an  easy  confusion  with  Chryses  and  Chryseis 
— half  set  right  afterwards  in  the  change  from  Briseida 
to  Griseida  in  Boccaccio  and  Creseide  in  Chaucer — 
he  made  his  heroine  the  daughter  of  Calchas.  The 
priest,  a  traitor  to  Troy  but  powerful  with  the  Greeks, 
has  left  his  daughter  in  the  city  and  demands  her — 
a  demand  which,  with  the  usual  complacency  noticed 
above  as  characterising  the  Trojans  in  Dares  himself, 
is  granted,  though  they  are  very  angry  with  Calchas. 
But  Troilus  is  already  the  damsel's  lover ;  and  a  bitter 
parting  takes  place  between  them.  She  is  sent,  gor- 
geously equipped,  to  the  Greeks ;  and  it  happens  to 
be  Diomed  who  receives  her.  He  at  once  makes  the 
fullest  declarations  —  for  in  nothing  did  the  Middle 
Age  believe  more  fervently  than  in  the  sentiment, 

"Who  ever  loved  that  loved  not  at  first  sight  ?" 

But  Briseida,  with  a  rather  excessive  politeness,  and 
leaving  him  a  good  deal  of  hope,  informs  him  that 
she  has  already  a  fair  friend  yonder.  Whereat,  as 
is  reasonable,  he  is  not  too  much  discouraged.  It 
must  be  supposed  that  this  is  related  to  Troilus,  for 
in  the  next  fight  he,  after  Diomed  has  been  wounded, 
reproaches  Briseida  pretty  openly.  He  is  not  wrong, 
for  Briseida  weeps  at  Diomed's  wound,  and  (to  the 
regret  and  reproof  of  her  historian,  and  indeed  against 


ANTIQUITY   IN   ROMANCE.  181 

her  own  conscience)  gives  herself  to  the  Greek,  or 
determines  to  do  so,  on  the  philosophical  principle 
that  Troilus  is  lost  to  her,  Achilles  then  kills  Troiliis 
himself,  and  we  hear  no  more  of  the  lady. 

The  volubility  of  Benoit  assigns  divers  long  speeches 
to  Briseida,  in  which  favourable  interpreters  have 
seen  the  germ  of  the  future  Cressid ;  and  in  which 
any  fair  critic  may  see  the  suggestion  of  her.  But 
it  is  little  more  than  a  suggestion.  Of  the  full  and 
masterly  conception  of  Cressid  as  a  type  of  woman 
which  was  afterwards  reached,  Troilus,  and  Diomed, 
and  Pandarus,  and  the  wrath  of  the  gods  were  essen- 
tial features.  Here  Troilus  is  a  shadow,  Diomed  not 
much  more,  Pandarus  non-existent,  the  vengeance  of 
Love  on  a  false  lover  unthought  of.  Briseida,  though 
she  has  changed  her  name,  and  parentage,  and  status, 
is  still,  as  even  the  patriotic  enthusiasm  of  MM. 
Moland  and  d'Hericault  (the  first  who  did  Benoit  jus- 
tice) perceives,  the  Briseis  of  Homer,  a  slave  -  girl 
who  changes  masters,  and  for  her  own  pleasure  as 
well  as  her  own  safety  is  chiefly  anxious  to  please  the 
master  that  is  near.  The  vivifying  touch  was  brought 
by  Boccaccio,  and  Boccaccio  falls  out  of  our  story. 

But  between  Benoit  and  Boccaccio  there  is  another 
personage  who  concerns  us  very  distinctly.  Never 
was  there  such  a  case,  even  in  the  Middle 
r/icHistona  ^ojgg  ^hcn  the  absence  of  printing,  of 
public  libraries,  and  of  general  knowledge 
of  literature  made  such  things  easy,  of  sic  vos  non  vobis 
as  the  Historia  Trojana  of  Guido  de  Columnis,  other- 
wise Guido  delle  Colonne,  or  Guido  Colonna,  of  Mes- 


182  EUKOPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

sina.  This  person  appears  to  have  spent  some  time 
in  England  rather  late  in  the  thirteenth  century  ;  and 
there,  no  doubt,  he  fell  in  with  the  Roman  de  Troie. 
He  wrote — in  Latin,  and  thereby  appealing  to  a  larger 
audience  than  even  French  could  appeal  to — a  Troy- 
book  which  almost  at  once  became  widely  popular. 
The  MSS.  of  it  occur  by  scores  in  the  principal  libra- 
ries of  Europe ;  it  was  the  direct  source  of  Boccaccio, 
and  with  that  writer's  Filostrato  of  Chaucer,  and  it 
formed  the  foundation  of  almost  all  the  known  Troy- 
books  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteeenth  centuries,  Be- 
noit  being  completely  forgotten.  Yet  recent  inves- 
tigation has  shown  that  Gruido  not  merely  adapted 
Benoit  in  the  usual  mediieval  fashion,  but  followed 
him  so  closely  that  his  work  might  rather  be  called 
translation  than  adaptation.  At  any  rate,  beyond  a 
few  details  he  has  added  nothing  to  the  story  of 
Troilus  and  Cressida  as  Benoit  left  it,  and  as,  in 
default  of  all  evidence  to  the  contrary,  it  is  only  fair 
to  conclude  that  he  made  it. 

From  the  date,  1287,  of  Guido  delle  Colonne's  ver- 
sion, it  follows  necessarily  that  all  the  vernacular  Troy- 
books — our  own  Destriiction  of  Troy}  the  French  prose 
romance  of  Troilus^  &c.,  not  to  mention  Lydgate  and 
others  —  fall  like  Boccaccio  and  Chaucer  out  of  the 
limits  of  this  volume.  Nor  can  it  be  necessary  to 
enter  into  detail  as  to  the  other  classical  French 
romances,  the  Roman  de  TJiebes,  the  Roman  d'Endas,  the 
Roman  de  Jules  C6sar,  Athis  and.  Profilias,  and  the 

^  Efl.  Panton  and  Donaldson,  E.E.T.S.     I;ondoii,  1S69-74. 
-  Ed.  Molaud  .and  d'H(5ricault,  op.  cit. 


ANTIQUITY   IX   ROMANCE.  183 

rest;^  while  something  will  be  said  of  the  German 
JEneid  of  H.  von  Veldeke  in  a  future  chapter.  The 
capital  examples  of  the  Alexandreid  and  the  Iliad,  as 
understood  by  the  Middle  Ages,  not  only  must  but 
actually  do  suffice  for  our  p^Tpose. 

And  we  see  from  them  very  well  not  merely  in 

what  light   the  Middle  Ages  regarded    the  classical 

stories,  but  also  to  what  extent  the  classical 

Meaning  of 

the  classical  stories  aftectcd  the  Middle  Ages,  This 
romance.  latter  poiut  is  of  the  more  importance  in 
that  even  yet  the  exact  bearing  and  meaning  of  the 
Renaissance  in  this  respect  is  by  no  means  universally 
comprehended.  It  may  be  hoped,  if  not  very  certainly 
trusted,  that  most  educated  persons  have  now  got  rid 
of  the  eighteenth-century  notion  of  meditcval  times  as 
being  almost  totally  ignorant  of  the  classics  them- 
selves, a  notion  which  careful  reading  of  Chaucer 
alone  should  be  quite  sufficient  to  dispel.  The  fact 
of  course  is,  that  all  through  the  Middle  Ages  the 
Latin  classics  were  known,  unequally  but  very  fairly 
in  most  cases,  while  the  earlier  Middle  Ages  at  least 
were  by  no  means  ignorant  of  Greek. 

But  although  there  was  by  no  means  total  ignorance, 
there  was  what  is  to  us  a  scarcely  comprehensible 
want  of  understanding.  To  the  average  mediaeval 
student,  perhaps  to  any  mediaeval  student,  it  seems 
seldom  or  never  to  have  occurred  that  the  men  of 
whom  he  was  reading  had  lived  under  a  dispensation 

^  The  section  on  "  L'Epopee  Antique  "  in  M.  Petit  de  Julleville's 
book,  more  than  once  referred  to,  is  by  M.  Leopold  Constaus,  editor 
of  the  Jiorium  dc  Thebes,  and  will  be  found  useful. 


184  EUROPEAIs^   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

SO  different  from  his  own  in  law  and  in  religion,  in 
politics  and  in  philosophy,  in  literature  and  in  science, 
that  an  elaborate  process  of  readjustment  was  neces- 
sary in  order  to  get  at  anything  like  a  real  compre- 
hension of  them.  ISTor  was  he,  as  a  rule,  able — men 
of  transcendent  genius  being  rather  rare,  amid  a  more 
than  respectable  abundance  of  men  of  talent — to  take 
them,  as  Chaucer  did  to  a  great  extent,  Dante  more  in- 
tensely though  less  widely,  and  Shakespeare  (but  Shake- 
speare had  already  felt  the  Eenaissance  spirit)  fully 
and  perfectly,  on  the  broad  ground  of  liumanity,  so  that 
anachronisms,  and  faults  of  costume,  matter  not  one  jot 
to  any  one  but  a  pedant  or  a  fool.  When  he  came 
to  something  in  the  story — something  in  sentiment, 
manners,  religion,  what  not  —  which  was  out  of  the 
range  of  his  own  experience,  he  changed  it  into 
something  within  the  range  of  his  own  experience. 
When  the  whole  story  did  not  lend  itself  to  the 
treatment  which  he  wished  to  apply,  he  changed 
it,  added  to  it,  left  out  from  it,  without  the  slightest 
scruple.  He  had  no  more  difficulty  in  transforming 
the  disciplined  tactic  of  the  Macedonian  phalanx 
into  a  series  of  random  chevauclUcs  than  in  adjusting 
the  much  more  congenial  front  -  fighting  of  Greeks 
and  Trojans  to  his  own  ideas ;  and  it  cost  him  little 
more  to  engraft  a  whole  brand-new  romantic  love- 
story  on  the  Tale  of  Troy  than  to  change  the  his- 
torical siege  of  Gaza  into  a  Fitcrres  de  Gadrcs,  of  which 
Aimeri  of  Narbonne  or  Eaoul  de  Cambrai  would  have 
been  the  appropriate  hero.  Sometimes,  indeed,  he 
simply  confounded  Persians  and  Saracens,  just  as  else- 


ANTIQUITY  IN   ROMANCE.  185 

where  he  confounded  Saracens  and  Vikings ;  and  he 
introduced  high  priests  of  heathen  divinities  as  bishops, 
with  the  same  sang  froid  with  which  long  afterwards 
the  translators  of  the  Bible  founded  an  order  of 
"  dukes  "  in  Edom. 

A  study  of  antiquity  conducted  in  such  a  fashion 
could  hardly  have  coloured  mediaeval  thought  with 
any  real  classicism,  even  if  it  had  been  devoted  to 
much  more  genuine  specimens  of  antiquity  tlian  the 
semi-Oriental  medley  of  the  Pseudo-Callisthenes  and 
the  bit  of  bald  euhemerism  which  had  better  have 
been  devoted  to  Hephaestus  than  ascribed  to  his  priest. 
But,  by  another  very  curious  fact,  the  two  great  and 
commanding  examples  of  the  Eomance  of  Antiquity 
were  executed  each  under  the  influence  of  the  flourish- 
ing of  one  of  the  two  mightiest  branches  of  mediaeval 
poetry  proper.  When  Alberic  and  the  decasyllabist 
(whoever  he  was)  wrote,  the  chanson  de  gestc  was  in  the 
very  prime  of  its  most  vigorous  manhood,  and  the 
Roman  d'AHxa.ndrc  accordingly  took  not  merely  the 
outward  form,  but  the  whole  spirit  of  the  chanson  de 
gestc  itself.  And  when  Benoit  de  Sainte-More  gave 
the  first  shapings  of  the  great  story  of  Troilus  and 
Cressida  out  of  the  lifeless  rubbish-heap  of  Dares,  it 
was  at  the  precise  minute  when  also,  in  hands  known 
or  unknown,  the  greater  story  of  Arthur  and  Gawain, 
of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere,  was  shaping  itself  from 
materials  probably  even  scantier.  Even  Guido  of  the 
Columns,  much  more  Boccaccio,  had  this  story  fully 
before  them ;  and  Cressida,  when  at  last  she  becomes 
herself,  has,  if  nothing  of  the  majesty  of  Guinevere,  a 


186  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

good  deal  of  Iseult — au  Iseult  more  faithless  to  love, 
but  equally  indifferent  to  anything  except  love.  As 
Candace  in  Alexander  lias  the  crude  though  not  un- 
amiable  naturalism  of  a  chanson  heroine,  so  Cressid — 
so  even  Briseida  to  some  extent — has  the  characteris- 
tic of  the  frail  angels  of  Arthurian  legend.  The  cup 
would  have  spilled  wofuUy  in  her  husband's  hand,  the 
mantle  would  scarcely  have  covered  an  inch  of  her ; 
but  though  of  coarser  make,  she  is  of  the  same  mould 
with  the  ladies  of  the  Eound  Table, — she  is  of  the  first 
creation  of  the  order  of  romantic  womanhood. 


18^ 


CHAPTEE    V. 

THE   MAKING   OF   ENGLISH   AND    THE   SETTLEMENT   OF 
EUKOPEAN   PliOSODY. 


SPECIAL  INTEREST   OF   EARLY    MIDDLE    ENGLISH DECAY  OF  ANGLO-SAXON 

EARLY    MIDDLE    ENGLISH    LITERATURE — SCANTINESS    OF    ITS    CON- 
STITUENTS— LAYAMON THE    FORM    OF   THE   '  BRUT  ' ITS  SUBST.VNCE 

THE     '  ORMULUM  '  :      ITS     METRE,     ITS     SPELLING THE     '  ANCREN 

RIWLE' — THE  'owl  AND  THE  NIGHTINGALE' — PROVERBS ROBERT  OF 

GLOUCESTER — ROMANCES — '  HAVELOK   THE    DANE  ' '  KING    HORN  ' — 

THE  PROSODY  OF  THE  MODERN  LANGUAGES — HISTORICAL  RETROSPECT 

ANGLO-SAXON     PROSODY — ROMANCE    PROSODY^ENGLISH    PROSODY 

^THE      LATER      ALLITERATION THE      NEW     VERSE RHYME     AND 

SYLLABIC     EQUIVALENCE ACCENT    AND     QUANTITY THE     GAIN     OF 

FORM— THE     "accent"     THEORY — INITIAL    FALLACIES,     AND    FINAL 
PERVERSITIES    THEREOF. 

The  positive  achievements  of  English  literature,  during 
the  period  with  which  this  volume  deals,  are  not  at 
„    .  , .  ,     .    first  sight  great :  and  all  the  more  finished 

Special  interest  o         o  ' 

nf  Early  Middle  literary  productiou  of  tlie  time,  till  the 
extreme  end  of  it,  was  in  French  and  Latin. 
But  the  work  done  during  this  time  in  getting  the 
English  language  ready  for  its  future  duties,  in  equip- 
ping it  with  grammar  and  prosody,  in  preparing,  so  to 
speak,  for  Chaucer,  is  not  only  of  the  first  importance 


188  EUEOrEAN   LITEEATUEE,    1100-1300. 

intrinsically,  but  has  a  value  which  is  almost  unique 
in  general  literary  history  as  an  example.  Nowhere 
else  have  we  the  opportunity  of  seeing  a  language  and 
a  literature  in  the  process  of  gestation,  or  at  least  of 
a  reformation  so  great  as  to  be  almost  equal  to  new 
birth.  Of  the  stages  which  turned  Latin  through  the 
Eomanic  vulgar  tongues  into  Spanish,  Italian,  Portu- 
guese, Provencal,  French,  we  have  the  very  scantiest 
remains;  and  though  the  Strasburg  oaths  and  the 
Eulalia  hymn  are  no  doubt  inestimable  in  their  way, 
they  supply  exceedingly  minute  and  precarious  step- 
ping-stones by  which  to  cross  from  Ausonius  to  the 
Chanson  de  Boland.  From  the  earliest  literary  stages 
of  the  Teutonic  tongues  we  have,  except  in  the  case 
of  Anglo-Saxon  and  Icelandic,  very  little  wreckage  of 
time ;  and  Anglo-Saxon  at  least  presents  the  puzzling 
characteristic  that  its  earliest  remains  are,  cceteris 
paribus,  nearly  as  complete  and  developed  as  the 
earliest  remains  of  Greek.  In  German  itself,  whether 
High  or  Low,  the  change  from  oldest  to  youngest  is 
nothing  like  the  change  from  the  English  of  Beoimdf 
to  the  English  of  Browning.  And  though  the  same 
process  of  primordial  change  as  that  which  we  have 
seen  in  English  took  place  certainly  in  German,  and 
possibly  in  the  Eomance  tongues,  it  is  nowhere  trace- 
able with  anything  like  the  same  clearness  or  with 
such  gradual  development.  By  the  eleventh  century 
at  latest  in  France,  by  the  end  of  the  twelfth  in 
Germany,  verse  had  taken,  in  the  first  case  fully,  in 
the  second  almost  fully,  a  modern  form.  In  England  it 
was,  during  the  two  hundred  years  from  1150  to  1350, 


THE   MAKING   OF   ENGLISH.  189 

working  itself  steadily,  and  with  ample  examples,  from 
pure  accent  to  accentual  quantity,  and  from  alliteration 
to  rhyme.  Of  this  process,  and  those  similar  to  it  in 
other  countries,  we  shall  give  an  account  which  will 
serve  for  the  whole  in  the  latter  part  of  this  chapter ; 
the  actual  production  and  gradual  transformation  of 
English  language  and  literature  generally  may  occupy 
us  in  the  earlier  part. 

It  is  to  he  hoped  that  by  this  time  a  middle  way, 
tolerably  free  from  molestation,  may  be  taken  between 
those  historians  of  English  who  would  have  a  great 
gulf  fixed  before  Chaucer,  and  those  who  insist  upon 
absolute  continuity  from  Csedmon  to  Tennyson.  There 
must  surely  be  something  between  dismissing  (as  did 
the  best  historian  of  the  subject  in  the  last  generation) 
Anglo-Saxon  as  "  that  nocturnal  portion  of  our  litera- 
ture," between  calling  it  "  impossible  to  pronounce 
with  certainty  whether  anything  in  it  is  artistically 
good  or  bad,"  ^  and  thinking  it  proper,  as  it  has  some- 
times been  thought,  in  an  examination  in  English 
literature,  to  give  four  papers  to  Credmon,  ^Ihic,  and 
Wulfstan,  and  one  to  the  combined  works  of  Addison, 
Pope,  Johnson,  and  Burke.  Extravagances  of  the 
latter  kind  have  still,  their  heyday  of  reaction  not 
being  quite  past,  a  better  chance  than  extravagances 
of  the  former.     But  both  may  surely  be  avoided. 

The  evidence  is  rendered  more  easy  in  the  present 
connection  by  the  fact,  recognised  by  the  most  com- 
petent authorities  in  Eirst  English  or  Anglo-Saxon 

^  See  Craik,  History  of  Eivjlish  Literature,  3d  ed.  (Loudon,  186G), 
i.  55. 


190  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

itself,  that  for  some  time  before  the  arbitrary  line 
Decay  of  Anglo.  ^'^  the  Coiiquest  the  procluctivc  powers 
Saxon.  of  the  literature  had  been  failing,  and  the 

language  itself  was  showing  signs  of  change.  ISTo 
poetry  of  the  first  class  seems  to  have  been  written  in 
it  much  after  the  end  of  the  ninth  century,  little 
prose  of  a  very  good  class  after  the  beginning  of  the 
eleventh ;  and  its  inflexions  must  in  time  have  given 
way — were,  it  is  said  by  some,  actually  giving  way — 
before  the  results  of  the  invasion  and  assimilation  of 
French  and  Latin.  The  Conquest  helped ;  but  it  did 
not  wholly  cause. 

This,  however,  is  no  doubt  open  to  argument,  and 
the  argument  would  have  to  be  conducted  mainly  if 
not  wholly  on  philological  considerations,  with  which 
we  do  not  here  meddle.  The  indisputable  literary 
facts  are  that  the  canon  of  pure  Anglo-Saxon  or  Old- 
English  literature  closes  with  the  end  of  the  Saxon 
Chronicle  in  1154,  and  that  the  "  Semi-Saxon,"  the 
"  First  Middle  English,"  which  then  makes  its  appear- 
ance, approximates,  almost  decade  by  decade,  almost 
year  by  year,  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  modern  type. 
And  for  our  purpose,  though  not  for  the  purpose  of  a 
history  of  English  Literature  proper,  the  contemporary 
French  and  Latin  writing  has  to  be  taken  side  by 
side  with  it. 

It  is  not  surprising  that,  although  the  Latin  literary 

Earl  Middi    P^'oductiou  of  the  time,  especially  in  his- 

Engiish         tory,  was  at  least  equal  to  that  of  any  other 

European  country,  and  though  it  is  at  least 

probable    that    some    of    the    greatest   achievements 


THE   MAKING   OF   ENGLISH.  191 

of  literature,  French  in  language,  are  English  in 
nationality,  the  vernacular  should  for  long  have  been 
a  little  scanty  and  a  little  undistinguished  in  its  yield. 
Periods  of  moulting,  of  putting  on  new  skins,  and  the 
like,  are  never  periods  of  extreme  physical  vigour. 
And  besides,  this  Anglo-Saxon  itself  had  (as  has 
been  said)  been  distinctly  on  the  wane  as  a  literary 
language  for  more  than  a  century,  while  (as  has  not 
yet  been  said)  it  had  never  been  very  fertile  in 
varieties  of  profane  literature.  This  infertility  is  not 
surprising.  Except  at  rare  periods  literature  without 
literary  competition  and  comparison  is  impossible ; 
and  the  Anglo  -  Saxons  had  absolutely  no  modern 
literature  to  compare  and  compete  with.  If  any 
existed,  their  own  was  far  ahead  of  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  though  the  supposed  ignorance  of  Latin  and 
even  Greek  in  the  "  dark  "  ages  has  long  been  known 
to  be  a  figment  of  ignorance  itself,  circumstances 
coniiBcted  with,  though  not  confined  to,  the  concen- 
tration of  learning  and  teaching  in  the  clergy  brought 
about  a  disj)roportionate  attention  to  theology.  The 
result  was  that  the  completest  Anglo-Saxon  library  of 
which  we  can  form  any  well-based  conception  would 
have  contained  about  ten  cases  of  religious  to  one  of 
non-religious  books,  and  would  have  held  in  that 
eleventh  but  little  poetry,  and  hardly  any  prose  with 
an  object  other  than  information  ,or  practical  use. 

It  could  not  be  expected  that  the  slowly  changing 
Scantiness  of  its  language  should  at  once  change  its  habits 
constituents.  jj^  ^jjjf.  rcspect.  And  so,  as  the  century 
immediately    before    the    Conquest    had    seen    little 


192  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

but  chronicles  and  homilies,  leechdoms  and  laws, 
that  which  came  immediately  afterwards  gave  at 
first  no  very  different  products,  except  that  the  laws 
were  wanting,  for  obvious  reasons.  Nay,  the  first, 
the  largest,  and  almost  the  sole  work  of  hcllcs  lettres 
during  the  first  three-fourths  of  our  period,  the  Brut 
of  Layamon,  is  a  work  of  belles  lettres  without  knowing 
it,  and  imagines  itself  to  be  a  sober  history,  while  its 
most  considerable  contemporaries,  the  Ornmdum  and  the 
Ancren  Biide,  the  former  in  verse,  the  latter  in  prose, 
are  both  purely  religious.  At  the  extreme  end  of 
the  period  the  most  important  and  most  certain  work, 
Eobert  of  Glloucester's,  is,  again,  a  history  in  verse. 
About  the  same  time  we  have,  indeed,  the  romances 
of  Havelok  and  Horn ;  but  they  are,  like  most  of  the 
other  work  of  the  time,  translations  from  the  French. 
The  interesting  Poema  Morale,  or  "  Moral  Ode,"  which 
we  have  in  two  forms — one  of  the  meeting-point  of  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  one  fifty  years  later 
— is  almost  certainly  older  than  its  earliest  extant 
version,  and  was  very  likely  pure  Saxon.  Only  in 
Nicholas  of  Guilford's  Oui  and  Nightingale,  about 
1250,  and  perhaps  some  of  the  charming  Specimens  of 
Lyric  Poetry,  printed  more  than  fifty  years  ago  by  Mr 
"Wright,  with  a  very  few  otlier  things,  do  we  find  pure 
literature — not  the  literature  of  education  or  edifica- 
tion, but  the  literature  of  art  and  form. 

Yet  the  whole  is,  for  the  true  student  of  literature, 
full  enough  of  interest,  while  the  best  things 

J.ayamon.  !",„.. 

are  not  m  need  of  praising  by  allowance. 
Of  Layamon  mention  has  already  been  made  in  the 


THE   MAKING    OF   ENGLISH.  193 

chapter  on  the  Arthurian  Legend.  But  his  work  covers 
very  mucli  more  than  the  Arthurian  matter,  and  has 
interests  entirely  separate  from  it.  Layamon,  as  he 
tells  us/  derived  his  information  from  Bede,  Wace, 
and  a  certain  Albinus  who  has  not  been  clearly  iden- 
tified. But  he  must  have  added  a  great  deal  of  his 
own,  and  if  it  could  be  decided  exactly  how  he  added 
it,  the  most  difficult  problem  of  mediaeval  literature 
would  be  solved.  Thus  in  the  Arthurian  part,  just  as 
we  find  additions  in  Wace  to  Geoffrey,  so  we  find  addi- 
tions to  Wace  in  Layamon.  Where  did  he  get  these 
additions  ?  Was  it  from  the  uncertain  "  Albinus  "  ? 
Was  it,  as  Celtic  enthusiasts  hold,  that,  living  as  he 
did  on  Severn  bank,  he  was  a  neighbour  of  Wales,  and 
gathered  Welsh  tradition  ?  Or  was  it  from  deliberate 
invention  ?     We  cannot  tell. 

Again,  we  have  two  distinct  versions  of  his  Brut, 
the  later  of  which  is  fifty  years  or  thereabouts  younger 
than  the  earlier.  It  may  be  said  that  almost  all 
mediaeval  work  is  in  similar  case.  But  then  the 
great  body  of  mediaeval  work  is  anonymous ;  and  even 
the  most  scrupulous  ages  have  not  been  squeamish  in 
taking  liberties  with  the  text  of  Mr  Anon.  But  the 
author  is  named  in  both  these  versions,  and  named 
differently.  In  the  elder  he  is  Layamon  the  son  of 
Leovenath,  in  the  younger  Laweman  the  son  of  Leuca; 
and  though  Laweman  is  a  mere  variant  or  translation 
of  Layamon,  as  much  can  hardly  be  said  of  Leovenath 
and  Leuca.  Further,  the  later  version,  besides  the 
changes  of  language  which  were  in  the  circumstances 

1  Ed.  Madden,  i.  2. 

N 


194  EUKOPEAN   LITERATUllE,    1100-1300. 

inevitable,  omits  many  passages,  besides  those  in  wliich 
it  is  injured  or  mutilated,  and  alters  proper  names  en- 
tirely at  discretion. 

The  only  explanation  of  this,  though  it  is  an  ex- 
planation which  leaves  a  good  deal  unexplained,  is, 
of  course,  that  the  sense  both  of  historical  criticism 
and  of  the  duty  of  one  writer  to  another  was  hardly 
born.  The  curiosity  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  great ; 
their  literary  faculty,  though  somewhat  incult  and 
infantine,  was  great  likewise :  and  there  were  such 
enormous  gaps  in  their  positive  knowledge  that  the 
sharp  sense  of  division  between  the  certain,  the  un- 
certain, and  the  demonstrably  false,  which  has  grown 
up  later,  could  hardly  exist.  It  seems  to  have  been 
every  man's  desire  to  leave  each  tale  a  little  richer, 
fuller,  handsomer,  than  he  found  it :  and  in  doing  this 
he  hesitated  neither  at  the  accumulation  of  separate 
and  sometimes  incongruous  stories,  nor  at  the  inser- 
tion of  bits  and  scraps  from  various  sources,  nor,  it 
would  appear,  at  the  addition  of  what  seemed  to-  him 
possible  or  desirable,  without  troubling  himself  to  ex- 
amine whether  there  was  any  ground  for  considering 
it  actual. 

Secondly,  Layamon  has  no  small  interest  of  form. 
The  language  in  which  the  Brut  is  written  has  an  ex- 

Theform  of    cccdingly  Small  admixture  of  French  words ; 

thcBtut.  ]j^^^  ^^  j-^jjg  made  a  step,  and  a  long  one, 
from  Anglo-Saxon  towards  English.  The  verse  is  still 
alliterative,  still  destitute  of  any  fixed  number  of  syl- 
lables or  syllabic  equivalents.  But  the  alliteration  is 
weak  and  sometimes  not  present  at  all,  the  lines  are  of 


THE    MAKING    OF    ENGLISH.  195 

less  extreme  lawlessness  in  point  of  length  than  their 
older  Saxon  representatives,  and,  above  all,  there  is  a 
creeping  in  of  rhyme.  It  is  feeble,  tentative,  and 
obvious,  confined  to  ostentatious  pairs  like  "brotlier" 
and  "  other,"  "  miglit "  and  "  riglit,"  "  fare  "  and  "  care." 
But  it  is  a  beginning :  and  we  know  that  it  will 
spread. 

In   the  last  comparison,   that   of  matter,  Layamon 

will  not  come  out  ill  even  if  he  be  tried  high.     The 

most   obvious    trial   is   with    the   work    of 

Its  substance. 

Chrestien  de  Troyes,  his  earlier,  though 
not  much  earlier,  contemporary.  Here  the  French- 
man has  enormous  advantages — the  advantage  of  an 
infinitely  more  accomplished  scheme  of  language  and 
metre,  that  of  some  two  centuries  of  finished  poetical 
work  before  him,  that  of  an  evidently  wider  knowledge 
of  literature  generally,  and  perhaps  that  of  a  more  dis- 
tinctly poetical  genius.  And  yet  Layamon  can  survive 
the  test.  He  is  less,  not  more,  subject  to  the  cliche,  the 
stereotyped  and  stock  poetical  form,  than  Chrestien. 
If  he  is  far  less  smooth,  he  has  not  tlie  monotony 
which  accompanies  and,  so  to  speak,  dogs  the  "  skip- 
ping octosyllable  " ;  and  if  he  cannot,  as  Chrestien  can, 
frame  a  set  passage  or  show-piece,  he  manages  to  keep 
up  a  diffused  interest,  and  in  certain  instances — the 
story  of  Eouw^nne  (Kowena),  the  Tintagel  passage,  the 
speech  of  Walwain  to  tlie  Emperor  of  Home — has  a 
directness  and  simple  appeal  which  cannot  be  slighted. 
We  feel  that  he  is  at  the  beginning,  while  the  other 
in  respect  of  his  own  division  is  nearly  at  the  end: 
that  he  has  future,  capabilities,  opportunities  of  de- 


196  EUKOrEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1:300. 

velopnient.  When  one  reads  Chrestien  or  another 
earlier  contemporary,  Benoit  de  Sainte-lMore,  the  ques- 
tion is, "  What  can  come  after  this  ?  "  When  one  reads 
Layamon  the  happier  question  is,  "  What  will  come 
after  this  ? " 

The  Ormulum  and  the  Ancrcn  Riwle  appear  to  be 
— the  former  exactly  and  the  latter  nearly  of  the  same 
T/ic  Ormulum.  tlatc  as  Layauion,  all  being  near  to  1200. 
Its  metre.  -^■^J^^  though  they  were  "good  books,"  their 
interest  is  by  no  means  merely  one  of  edification.  That 
of  the  Ormtihwi  ^  is,  indeed,  almost  entirely  confined  to 
its  form  and  language ;  but  it  so  happens  that  this 
interest  is  of  the  kind  that  touches  literature  most 
nearly.  Orm  or  Ormin,  who  gives  us  his  name,  but  of 
whom  nothing  else  is  known,  has  left  in  ten  thousand 
long  lines  or  twenty  thousand  short  couplets  a  part 
only  of  a  vast  scheme  of  paraphrase  and  homiletic 
commentary  on  the  Four  Gospels  (the  "  four-in-hand 
of  Aminadab,"  as  he  calls  them,  taking  v^p  an  earlier 
conceit),  on  the  plan  of  taking  a  text  for  each  day  from 
its  gospel  in  the  calendar.  As  we  have  only  thirty- 
two  of  these  divisions,  it  is  clear  that  the  work,  if 
completed,  was  much  larger  than  this.  Orm  ad- 
dresses it  to  Walter,  his  brother  in  the  flesh  as  well 
as  spiritually :  the  book  seems  to  be  written  in  an 
Anglian  or  East  Anglian  dialect,  and  it  is  at  least  an 
odd  coincidence  that  the  names  Orm  and  Walter  occur 
together  in  a  Durham  MS.  But  whoever  Orm  or 
Ormin  was,  he  did  two  very  remarkable  things.  In 
the  first  place,  he  broke  entirely  with  alliteration  and 

'  Ed.  White  aud  Holt,  2  vols.     Oxford,  1878. 


THE   MAKING   OF   ENGLISH.  197 

with  any-length  lines,  composing  his  poem  in  a  metre 
which  is  either  a  fifteen-syllabled  iambic  tetrameter 
catalectic,  or  else,  as  the  reader  pleases,  a  series  of 
distichs  in  iambic  dimeters,  alternately  acatalectic 
and  catalectic.  He  does  not  rhyme,  but  his  work, 
in  the  couplet  form  which  shows  it  best,  exhibits 
occasionally  the  alternation  of  masculine  and  feminine 
endings.  This  latter  peculiarity  was  not  to  take  hold 
in  the  language ;  but  the  quantified  or  mainly  syllabic 
arrangement  was.  It  was  natural  that  Ormin,  greatly 
daring,  and  being  almost  the  first  to  dare,  should 
neither  allow  himself  the  principle  of  equivalence 
shortly  to  distinguish  English  prosody  from  the 
French,  which,  with  Latin,  he  imitated,  nor  should 
further  hamper  his  already  difficult  task  with  rhyme. 
But  his  innovation  was  great  enough,  and  his  name 
deserves — little  positive  poetry  as  there  is  in  his  own 
book — high  rank  in  the  hierarchy  of  British  poets. 
But  for  him  and  others  like  him  that  magnificent 
mixed  harmony,  which  English  almost  alone  of  lan- 
guages possesses,  which  distinguishes  it  as  much  from 
the  rigid  syllabic  bondage  of  French  as  from  the  loose 
jangle  of  merely  alliterative  and  accentual  verse,  would 
not  have  come  in,  or  would  have  come  in  later.  We 
might  have  had  Langland,  but  we  should  not  have  had 
Chaucer :  we  should  have  had  to  console  ourselves  for 
the  loss  of  Surrey  and  Wyatt  with  ingenious  extrava- 
gances like  Gawain  Douglas's  Eighth  Prologue ;  and 
it  is  even  possible  that  when  the  reaction  did  come, 
as  it  must  have  come  sooner  or  later,  we  might  have 
been  bound  like  the  French  Ijy  the  rigid  syllable  which 


198  EUEOPEAN   LITEUATUKE,    1100-1300. 

Orm  liimself  adopted,  but  which  in  those  early  days 
only  served  to  guide  and  not  to  fetter. 

His    second    important    peculiarity  shows    that   he 

must  have  been  an  odd  and  crotchety  creature,  but 

one  with  sense  in  his  crotchets.     He  seems 

Its  spelling.  .  .      . 

to  have  been  annoyed  by  mispronunciation 
of  his  own  and  other  work  :  and  accordingly  he  adopts 
(with  full  warning  and  explanation)  the  plan  of  in- 
variably doubling  the  consonant  after  every  short 
vowel  without  exception.  This  gives  a  most  grotesque 
air  to  his  pages,  which  are  studded  with  words  like 
"nemmnedd"  (named),  "  forrwerrpenn "  (to  despise), 
"  tunderrstanndenn "  (to  understand),  and  so  forth. 
But,  in  the  first  place,  it  fixes  for  all  time,  in  a  most 
invaluable  manner,  the  pronunciation  of  English  at 
that  time ;  and  in  the  second,  it  shows  that  Orm  had 
a  sound  understanding  of  that  principle  of  English 
which  has  been  set  at  nought  by  those  who  would 
spell  "traveller"  "traveler."  He  knew  that  the 
tendency,  and  the,  if  not  warned,  excusable  tendency, 
of  an  English  tongue  would  be  to  pronounce  this 
travcder.  It  is  a  pity  that  knowledge  which  existed 
in  the  twelfth  century  should  apparently  have  be- 
come partial  ignorance  close  to  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth. 

The  Ancren  Miiole  ^  has  no  oddities  of  this  kind,  and 
nothing  particularly  noticeable  in  its  form,  though  its 
easy  pleasant  prose  would  have  been  wonderful  at  the 

^  Ed.  Morton,  for  the  Camden  Society.  London,  1853.  This 
edition  is,  I  believe,  not  regarded  as  quite  satisfactory  by  philology : 
it  is  amply  adequate  for  literature. 


THE   MAKING   OF   ENGLISH.  199 

time  in  any  other  European  nation.  Even  French 
The  Ancren  prose  was  Only  just  beginning  to  take  such 
Riwie.  form,  and  had  not  yet  severed  itself  from 

poetic  peculiarities  to  anything  like  the  same  extent. 
But  then  the  unknown  author  of  the  Ancren  Mivde  had 
certainly  four  or  five,  and  perhaps  more,  centuries  of 
good  sound  Saxon  prose  before  him :  while  St  Bernard 
(if  he  wrote  French  prose),  and  even  Villehardouin,  had 
little  or  nothing  but  Latin.  I  have  called  him  un- 
known, and  he  neither  names  himself  nor  is  author- 
itatively named  by  any  one ;  while  of  the  guesses 
respecting  him,  that  which  identifies  him  with  Simon 
of  Ghent  is  refuted  by  the  language  of  the  book,  while 
that  which  assigns  it  to  Bishop  Poore  has  no  founda- 
tion. But  if  we  do  not  know  who  wrote  the  book,  we 
know  for  whom  it  was  written — to  wit,  for  the  three 
"  anchoresses  "  or  irregular  nuns  of  a  private  convent 
or  sisterhood  at  Tarrant  Keynes  in  Dorsetshire. 

Later  this  nunnery,  which  lasted  till  the  dissolution, 
was  taken  under  the  Cistercian  rule ;  but  at  first,  and 
at  the  time  of  the  book,  it  was  free,  the  author  advis- 
ing the  inmates,  if  anybody  asked,  to  say  that  they 
were  under  "  the  rule  of  St  James  " — i.e.,  the  famous 
definition,  by  that  apostle,  of  pure  religion  and  unde- 
filed.  The  treatise,  which  describes  itself,  or  is  de- 
scribed in  one  of  its  MSS.,  as  "  one  book  to-dealed 
into  eight  books,"  is  of  some  length,  but  singularly 
pleasing  to  read,  and  gives  evidence  of  a  very  amiable 
and  sensible  spirit  in  its  author,  as  well  as  of  a  pretty 
talent  for  writing  easy  prose.  If  he  never  rises  to  the 
more  mystical  and  poetical  beauties  of  mediteval  reli- 


200  EUKOPEAN  .LITEEATURE,    1100-1300. 

gion,  SO  he  never  descends  to  its  ferocities  and  its 
puerilities.  The  rule,  the  "  lady-rule,"  he  says,  is  the 
inward ;  the  outward  is  only  adopted  in  order  to  assist 
and  help  the  inward :  therefore  it  may  and  should  vary 
according  to  the  individual,  while  the  inward  cannot. 
The  outward  rule  of  the  anchoresses  of  Tarrant  Keynes 
was  by  no  means  rigorous.  They  were  three  in  num- 
ber ;  they  had  lay  sisters  (practically  lady's-maids)  as 
well  as  inferior  servants.  They  are  not  to  reduce 
themselves  to  bread-and-water  fasting  without  special 
direction ;  they  are  not  to  be  ostentatious  in  alms- 
giving ;  they  may  have  a  pet  cat ;  haircloth  and  hedge- 
hog-skins are  not  for  them ;  and  they  are  not  to  flog 
themselves  with  briars  or  leaded  thongs.  Ornaments 
are  not  to  be  worn ;  but  a  note  says  that  this  is  not  a 
positive  command,  all  such  things  belonging  merely  to 
the  external  rule.  Also  they  may  wash  just  as  often 
as  it  is  necessary,  or  as  they  like ! — an  item  which, 
absurd  as  is  the  popular  notion  of  the  dirt  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  speaks  volumes  for  the  sense  and  taste 
of  this  excellent  anonym. 

This  part  is  the  last  or  eighth  "  dole,"  as  the  sec- 
tions are  termed ;  the  remaining  seven  deal  with 
religious  service,  private  devotion,  the  Wcsen  or  na- 
ture of  anchorites,  temptation,  confession,  penance, 
penitence,  and  the  love  of  God.  Although  some  may 
think  it  out  of  fashion,  it  is  astonishing  how  much 
sense,  kindliness,  true  religion,  and  useful  learning 
there  is  in  this  monitor  of  the  anchoresses  of  Tarrant 
Keynes,  which  place  a  man  might  well  visit  in  pil- 


THE   MAKING   OF   ENGLISH.  201 

grimage  to  do  him  honour.  Every  now  and  then, 
rough  as  is  his  vehicle  of  speech — a  transition  medium, 
endowed  neither  with  the  oak-and-rock  strength  of 
Anglo-Saxon  nor  with  the  varied  gifts  of  modern 
English- — he  can  rise  to  real  and  true  eloquence,  as 
where  he  speaks  of  the  soul  and  "  the  heavy  flesh  that 
draweth  her  downwards,  yet  through  the  highship 
[nobleness]  of  her,  it  [the  flesh]  shall  become  full 
light  —  yea,  lighter  than  the  wind  is,  and  brighter 
than  the  sun  is,  if  only  it  follow  her  and  draw  her 
not  too  hard  to  its  own  low  kind."  But  though  such 
passages,  good  in  phrase  and  rhythm,  as  well  as  noble 
in  sense,  are  not  rare,  the  pleasant  humanity  of  the 
whole  book  is  the  best  thing  in  it.  M.  Eenan  oddly 
enough  pronounced  Ecclesiastcs,  that  voice  of  the  doom 
of  life,  to  be  "  le  seul  livre  aimable  "  which  Judaism 
had  produced.  The  ages  of  St  Francis  and  of  the 
Imitation  do  not  compel  us  to  look  about  for  a  seul 
livre  aimahle,  but  it  may  safely  be  said  that  there  is 
none  more  amiable  in  a  cheerful  human  way  than  the 
Ancrcn  Riwle. 

It  would  serve  no  purpose  here  to  discuss  in  detail 
most  of  the  other  vernacular  productions  of  the  first 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century  in  English.^  They  are 
almost  without  exception  either  religious — the  con- 
stant rehandling  of  the  time  cannot  be  better  exem- 

^  Substantial  portions  of  all  the  work  mentioned  in  this  chapter 
will  be  found  in  Messrs  Morris  and  Skeat's  invaluable  Spcrimcvs  of 
Early  Enfjlhh  (Oxford,  Part  i.  ed.  2,  18S7  ;  Part  ii.  ed.  3,  1801). 
These  rnclude  the  whole  of  the  Moral  Ode  and  of  King  Horn. 
Separate  complete  editions  of  some  are  noted  below. 


202  KUROPEAN   LITETtATURE,    1100-1300. 

plified  than  by  tlie  fact  that  at  least  two  paraphrases, 
one  in  prose,  one  in  verse,  of  one  of  the  "  doles  "  of  the 
Ancren  Riivle  itself  exist — or  else  moral-scientific,  such 
as  the  Bestiary^  so  often  printed.  One  of  the  con- 
stantly recurring  version-paraphrases  of  the  Scriptures, 
however — the  so-called  Story  of  Genesis  and  Exodus,'^ 
supposed  to  date  from  about  the  middle — has  great 
interest,  because  here  we  find  (whether  for  the  first 
time  or  not  he  would  be  a  rash  man  who  should  say, 
but  certainly  for  almost,  if  not  quite,  the  first)  the 
famous  "  Christabel "  metre — iambic  dimeter,  rhymed 
witli  a  wide  licence  of  trisyllabic  equivalence.  This 
was  to  be  twice  revived  by  great  poets,  with  immense 
consequences  to  English  poetry — first  by  Spenser  in 
the  Kcdendar,  and  then  by  Coleridge  himself — and  was 
to  become  one  of  the  most  powerful,  varied,  and  charm- 
ing of  English  rhythms.  That  this  metre,  the  chief 
battle-ground  of  fighting  between  the  accent-men  and 
the  quantity-men,  never  arose  till  after  rhymed  quan- 
titative metre  had  met  accentual  alliteration,  and  had 
to  a  great  extent  overcome  it,  is  a  tell-tale  fact,  of 
which  more  hereafter.  And  it  is  to  be  observed  also 
that  in  tliis  same  poem  it  is  possible  to  discover  not  a 
few  very  complete  and  handsome  decasyllabics  which 
would  do  no  discredit  to  Chaucer  himself. 

But  the  Oui  and  the  Niyhtingale^  is  another  kind 

^  Wright,  Reliquicc  Antiquce,  i.  208-227. 
2  Ed.  Morris,  E.E.T.S.,  London,  1865. 

^  About  600  lines  of  this  are  given  by  Morris  and    Skeat.      Com- 
pletely edited  by  (among  others)  F.  H.  Sti'atmann.     Ivrefeld  18G8. 


THE    MAKING    OF    ENGLISH.  203 

of  thing.  Ill  tlie  first  place,  it  appears  to  be  (though 
r;ieOwiand  it  woulcl  be  rash  to  affirm  this  positively  of 
the  Nightingale,  anything  in  a  form  so  popular  with  the 
French  trouveres  as  the  dShat)  original  and  not  trans- 
lated. It  bears  a  name,  that  of  Nicholas  of  Guildford, 
who  seems  to  be  the  author,  and  assigns  himself  a 
local  habitation  at  Portesham  in  Dorsetshire.  Al- 
though of  considerable  length  (nearly  two  thousand 
lines),  and  written  in  very  pure  English  with  few 
French  words^  it  manages  the  rhymed  octosyllabic 
couplet  (which  by  this  time  had  become  the  standing 
metre  of  France  for  everything  but  historical  poems, 
and  for  some  of  these)  with  remarkable  precision, 
lightness,  and  harmony.  Moreover,  the  Owl  and  the 
Nightingale  conduct  their  debate  with  plenty  of  mother- 
wit,  expressed  not  unfrequently  in  proverbial  form. 
Indeed  proverbs,  a  favourite  form  of  expression  with 
Englishmen  at  all  times,  appear  to  have  been  specially 
in  favour  just  then  ;  and  the  "  Proverbs  of 
Alfred  "  ^  (supposed  to  date  from  this  very 
time),  the  "  Proverbs  of  Hendyng  "  ^  a  little  later,  are 
not  likely  to  have  been  the  only  collections  of  the 
kind.  The  Alfred  Proverbs  are  in  a  rude  popular 
metre  like  the  old  alliteration  much  broken  down ; 
those  of  Hendyng  in  a  six-line  stanza  (soon  to  become 
the  famous  ballad  stanza)  syllabled,  though  sometimes 
catalectically,  8  8  6  8  8  6,  and  rhymed  aah  c  cl>,  the 
proverb  and  the  coda  "quod  Hendyng"  ])eing  added 

^  Fa\.  Morris,  An  Old  English  Miscellany.      LoikIdii,  1872. 
^  See  Rcli<iuuc  Antiqiut;  i.  109-116. 


204  EUEOPEAN   LITER ATUEE,    1100-1300. 

to  each.  The  Oivl  and  the  Niglitiwjale  is,  however,  as 
we  might  expect,  superior  to  both  of  these  in  poetical 
merit,  as  well  as  to  the  so-called  Moral  Ode  which, 
printed  by  Hickes  in  1705,  was  one  of  the  first  Middle 
English  poems  to  gain  modern  recognition. 

As  the  dividing-point  of  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries  approaches,  the  interest  of  literary 
Robert  of  work  incrcascs,  and  requires  less  and  less 
Gloucester.  allowauce  of  historical  and  accidental 
value.  This  allowance,  indeed,  is  still  necessary  with 
the  verse  chronicle  of  liobert  of  Gloucester,^  the  date 
of  which  is  fixed  with  sufficient  certainty  at  1298. 
This  book  has  been  somewhat  undervalued,  in  point  of 
strict  literary  merit,  from  a  cause  rather  ludicrous  but 
still  real.  It  will  almost  invariably  be  found  that 
those  mediasval  books  which  happen  to  have  been 
made  known  before  the  formal  beginning  of  scholarship 
in  the  modern  languages,  are  underrated  by  modern 
scholars,  who  not  unnaturally  put  a  perhaps  exces- 
sive price  upon  their  own  discoveries  or  fosterlings. 
Eobert  of  Gloucester's  work,  with  the  later  but  com- 
panion Englishing  of  Peter  of  Langtoft  by  Eobert 
Manning  of  Brunne,  was  published  by  Hearne  in  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century.  The  contemporaries 
of  that  publication  thought  him  rude,  unkempt, 
"  Gothick  "  :  the  moderns  have  usually  passed  him  by 
for  more  direct  2^'^otdg4s  of  their  own.  Yet  there  is 
not  a  little  attraction  in  Eobert.  To  begin  with,  he 
is  the  first  in  English,  if   not  the  first  in  any  modern 

^  lulited  with  Langtoft,  in  4  vols.,  by  Hearne,  Oxford,  1724  ;  and 
reprinted,  London,  1810.     Also  more  lately  in  the  Rolls  Series. 


THE   MAKING   OF   ENGLISH.  205 

language,  to  attempt  in  the  vernacular  a  general 
history,  old  as  well  as  new,  new  as  well  as  old.  And 
the  opening  of  him  is  not  to  be  despised — 

"  Engelaud  is  a  well  good  land,  I  ween  of  each  land  the  best, 
Yset  in  the  end  of  the  world,  as  all  in  the  "West : 
The  sea  goeth  him  all  about,  he  stands  as  an  isle, 
His  foes  he  dares  the  less  doubt  but  it  be  through  guile 
Of  folk  of  the  self  land,  as  men  hath  y-seen  while." 

And  in  the  same  good  swinging  metre  he  goes  on 
describing  the  land,  praising  its  gifts,  and  telling 
its  story  in  a  downright  fashion  which  is  very 
agreeable  to  right  tastes.  Like  almost  everybody  else, 
he  drew  upon  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  for  his  early 
history :  but  from  at  least  the  time  of  the  Conqueror 
(he  is  strongly  prejvidiced  in  the  matter  of  Harold)  he 
represents,  if  not  what  we  should  call  solid  historical 
knowledge,  at  any  rate  direct,  and  for  the  time  toler- 
ably fresh,  historical  tradition,  while  as  he  approaches 
his  own  time  he  becomes  positively  historical,  and,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  Oxford  town  -  and  -  gown  row  of 
1263,  the  first  Barons'  Wars,  the  death  of  the  Earl- 
Marshal,  and  such  things,  is  a  vigorous  as  well  as 
a  tolerably  authoritative  chronicler.  In  the  history  of 
English  prosody  he,  too,  is  of  great  importance,  being 
another  landmark  in  the  process  of  consolidating 
accent  and  quantity,  alliteration  and  rhyme.  His 
swinging  verses  still  have  the  older  tendency  to  a 
trochaic  rather  than  the  later  to  an  anapaestic  rhythm  ; 
but  they  are,  so  to  speak,  on  the  move,  and  approaching 
the  later  form.  He  is  still  rather  prone  to  group  his 
rhymes  instead  of  keeping  the  couplets  separate :  but 


206  EUROPEA^^    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

as  lie  is  not  translating  from  chanson  clc  gcste  form, 
he  does  not,  as  Robert  of  Brunne  sometimes  does,  fall 
into  complete  Inisscs.  I  have  counted  as  many  as 
twenty  continuous  rhymes  in  Manning,  and  there  may 
be  more :  but  there  is  nothing  of  that  extent  in  the 
earlier  Eobert. 

Verse  history,  however,  must  always  be  an  awkward 

and    unnatural    form  at    the   best.     The  end   of    the 

thirteenth  century  had  something  better  to 

liiimanccs.         i  •         i  /. 

show  m  the  appearance  or  romance  prof)er 
and  of  ej)ic.  When  the  study  of  any  department  of 
old  literature  begins,  there  is  a  natural  and  almost 
invariable  tendency  to  regard  it  as  older  than  it  really 
is ;  and  when,  at  the  end  of  the  last  century,  the  Eng- 
lish verse  romances  began  to  be  read,  this  tendency 
prevailed  at  least  as  much  as  usual.  Later  investiga- 
tion, besides  showing  that,  almost  without  exception, 
they  are  adaptations  of  French  originals,  has,  partly 
as  a  consequence  of  this,  shown  that  scarcely  any  that 
we  have  are  earlier  than  the  extreme  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  Among  these  few  that  are,  how- 
ever, three  of  exceptional  interest  (perhaps  the  best 
three  except  Gaivaine  and  the  Green  Knight  and  /S'ir 
Launfal)  may  probably  be  classed  —  to  wit,  Horn, 
Haveloh,  and  the  famous  Sir  Tristram.  As  to  the 
last  and  best  known  of  these,  which  from  its  inclusion 
among  Sir  Walter  Scott's  works  has  received  attention 
denied  to  the  rest,  it  may  or  may  not  be  the  work  of 
Thomas  the  lihymer.  But  whether  it  is  or  not,  it  can 
by  no  possibility  be  later  than  the  first  quarter  of  the 
fourteenth   century,   while   the   most   cautious   critics 


THE    MAKING    OF   ENGLISH.  207 

pronounce  both  Havdoh  the  Dane  and  Kinrj  Horn  to 
be  older  than  loOO.^ 

It  is,  moreover,  not  a  mere  accident  tlmt  these 
three,  though  the  authors  j)retty  certainly  had  French 
originals  before  them,  seem  most  likely  to  have  had 
yet  older  English  or  Anglo-Saxon  originals  of  the 
French  in  the  case  of  Hm^n  and  Haveloh,  while  the 
Tristram  story,  as  is  pointed  out  in  the  chapter  on  the 
Haveioktiie  Arthurian  Legend,  is  the  most  British  in 
Dane.  (^qj^q  of  qW  ^]^q  divisions   of  that  Legend. 

Havelok  and  Horn  have  yet  further  interest  because  of 
the  curious  contrast  between  their  oldest  forms  in  more 
ways  than  one.  Havdoh  is  an  English  equivalent,  with 
extremely  strong  local  connections  and  identifications, 
of  the  homelier  passages  of  the  French  chansons  de  r/este. 
The  hero,  born  in  Denmark,  and  orphan  heir  to  a  king- 
dom, is  to  be  put  away  by  his  treacherous  guard- 
ian, who  commits  him  to  Grim  the  fisherman  to  be 
drowned.  Havelok's  treatment  is  hard  enough  even 
on  his  way  to  the  drowning ;  but  as  supernatural 
signs  show  his  kingship  to  Grim's  wife,  and  as  the 
fisherman,  feigning  to  have  performed  his  task,  meets 
with  very  scant  gratitude  from  his  employer,  he  re- 
solves to  escape  from  the  latter's  power,  puts  to  sea, 
and  lands  in  England  at  the  place  afterwards  to  be 
called  from  him  Grimsby.  Havelok  is  brought  up 
simply  as  a  rough  fisher-boy ;  but  he  obtains  employ- 

^  Tristram,  for  editions  v.  p.  116  :  Ilavdolc,  edited  bj'  Madden, 
1828,  and  again  by  Prof.  Skeat,  E.E.T.S.,  1868.  Kiwj  Horn  has  been 
repeatedly  jtrinted — first  by  Ritson,  A  ncient  Enf/lish  Metrical  Jioj/ianccs 
(London,  1802),  ii.  91,  and  Appendix  ;  last  by  Prof.  Skeat  in  the 
Specimens  above  mentioned. 


208  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

ment  in  Lincoln  Castle  as  porter  to  the  kitchen,  and 
much  rough  horse-play  of  the  chanson  kind  occurs. 
Now  it  so  happens  that  the  heiress  of  England,  Gold- 
borough,  has  been  treated  by  her  guardian  with  as 
much  injustice  though  with  less  ferocity ;  and  the 
traitor  seeks  to  crown  his  exclusion  of  her  from  her 
rights  by  marrying  her  to  the  sturdy  scullion.  When 
the  two  rights  are  thus  joined,  they  of  course  prevail, 
and  the  two  traitors,  after  a  due  amount  of  hard  fight- 
ing, receive  their  doom,  Godard  the  Dane  being  hanged, 
and  Godric  the  Englishman  burnt  at  the  stake.  This 
rough  and  vigorous  story  is  told  in  rough  and 
vigorous  verse — octosyllabic  couplets,  with  full  licence 
in  shortening,  but  with  no  additional  syllables  ex- 
cept an  occasional  double  rhyme  —  in  very  sterling 
English,  and  with  some,  though  slight,  traces  of 
alliteration. 

Horn  {Kin<j  Horn,  Horn-Child  and   Maiden  Him- 

nilde,  &c.)  is  somewhat  more  courtly  in  its  general 

outlines,  and  has  less  of  the  folk- tale  about 

King  Horn.      •         -i      ,     •         ^  ^  ■  •   ^      i-^ 

it ;  but  it  also  has  connections  with  Den- 
mark, and  it  turns-  upon  treachery,  as  indeed  do 
nearly  all  the  romances.  Horn,  son  of  a  certain  King 
Murray,  is,  in  consequence  of  a  raid  of  heathen  in 
ships,  orphaned  and  exiled  in  his  childhood  across  the 
sea,  where  he  finds  an  asylum  in  the  house  of  King 
Aylmer  of  Westerness.  His  love  for  Aylmer's 
daughter  Rimenhild  and  hers  for  him  (he  is  the  most 
beautiful  of  men),  tlie  faithfulness  of  his  friend  Athulf 
(who  has  to  undergo  the  very  trying  experience  of 
being  made  violent  love  to  by  Eimenhild  under  the 


THE    MAKING    OF    ENGLISH.  209 

impression  that  he  is  Horn),  and  the  treachery  of  his 
friend  Pikenild  (who  nearly  succeeds  in  making  the 
princess  his  own),  defray  the  chief  interest  of  the 
story,  which  is  not  very  long.  The  good  steward 
Athelbrus  also  plays  a  great  part,  which  is  noticeable, 
because  the  stewards  of  Romances  are  generally  bad. 
The  rhymed  couplets  of  this  poem  are  composed  of 
shorter  lines  than  those  of  Havelok.  They  allow  them- 
selves the  syllabic  licence  of  alliterative  verse  proper, 
though  there  is  even  less  alliteration  than  in  Haveloh, 
and  they  vary  from  five  to  eight  syllables,  though  five 
and  six  are  the  commonest.  The  poem,  indeed,  in  this 
respect  occupies  a  rather  peculiar  position.  Yet  it  is 
all  the  more  valuable  as  showing  yet  another  phase 
of  the  change. 

The  first  really  cliarming  literature  in  English  has, 
however,  still  to  be  mentioned :  and  this  is  to  be  found 
in  the  volume — 1:"  "■  more  than  a  pamphlet — edited 
fifty  years  ago  i  r  the  Percy  Society  (March  1,  1842) 
by  Thomas  Wright,  under  the  title  of  Specimens  of  Lyric 
Poetry  composed  in  England  in  the  Reign  of  Edward 
the  First,  from  MS.  2253  Harl.  in  the  British  Museum. 
The  first  three  poems  are  in  French,  of  the  well-known 
and  by  this  time  lar  from  novel  trouv^re  character,  of 
which  those  of  Thibaut  of  Champagne  are  the  best 
specimens.     The  fourth — 

"  Middel-erd  for  mon  wes  mad," 

is  English,  and  is  interesting  as  copying  not  the 
least  intricate  of  the  trouvhre  measures  —  an  eleven- 
line  stanza  of  eight   sevens   or  sixes,  rhymed  ah,  ah, 

0 


210  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

al),  ah,  c,  h,  c;  but  moral-religions  in  tone  and  much 
alliterated.  The  fifth,  also  English,  is  anapiestic  tetra- 
meter heavily  alliterated,  and  mono-rliymed  for  eight 
verses,  with  the  stanza  made  np  to  ten  by  a  couplet 
on  another  rhyme.  It  is  not  very  interesting.  But 
with  VI.  the  chorus  of  sweet  sounds  begins,  and  there- 
fore, small  as  is  the  room  for  extract  here,  it  must  be 
given  in  full : — 

"  Bytuene  Mershe  and  Avoril 

When  spray  beginnetli  to  springe, 
The  little  foul  hath  hire  wyl 

On  hyre  Ind  to  synge  : 
Ich  libbe  in  love-longinge 
For  semlokest  of  alle  thynge, 
He  may  me  blisse  bringe 

Icham  in  hire  banndoun. 
An  hendy  hap  ichabbe  y-hent, 
Ichot  from  hevine  it  is  me  sent, 
From  alle  wymmen  my  love  is  lent 

Ant  lyht  on  Alisoun. 

On  hew  hire  her  is  fayr  ynuh 

Hire  browe  bronne,  hire  eye  blake  ; 

With  lovsom  chere  he  on  me  loh  ; 
With  middel  small  ant  wel  y-make  ; 

Bott  he  me  wille  to  hire  take, 

For  to  buen  hire  owen  make, 

Long  to  lyven  ichulle  forsake, 
Ant  feye  fallen  a-doun. 
An  hendy  hap,  &c. 

Nihtes  when  I  wenke  ant  wake, 
For-thi  niyn  wonges  waxeth  won  ; 

Levedi,  al  for  thine  sake 
Lon"inge  is  Anient  me  on. 


THE   MAKING   OF   ENGLISH.  211 

In  world  is  non  so  wytor  mon 
That  al  hire  bountL'  telle  con  ; 
Heir  swyre  is  whittere  than  the  swon 
Ant  fayrest  may  in  toune. 
An  liendy  hap,  &c. 

Icham  for  wouyng  al  I'or-wake, 

Wery  so  water  in  wore 
Lest  any  reve  me  my  make 

Ychabbe  y-3yrned  3ore. 
Betere  is  tholien  whyle  sore 
Then  mournen  evermore. 
Geynest  under  gore, 
Herkene  to  my  roune. 
An  bendy  hap,  &c." 

The  next, "  With  longyng  y  am  lad,"  is  pretty,  though 
less  so :  and  is  in  ten-line  stanzas  of  sixes,  rhymed  a  a  h, 
a  ah,  ha  ah.  Those  of  VIII.  are  twelve-lined  in  eights, 
rhymed  ah,  ah,  ah,  ah,  c,  d,  c,  d ;  but  it  is  observ- 
able that  there  is  some  assonance  here  instead  of  pure 
rhyme.  IX.  is  in  the  famous  romance  stanza  of  six  or 
rather  twelve  lines,  a  la  Sir  ThojMs;  X.  in  octaves  of 
eights  alternately  rhymed  with  an  envoy  quatrain ; 
XL  (a  very  pretty  one)  in  a  new  metre,  rhymed  «  a  a  h 
a,  h.  And  this  variety  continues  after  a  fashion  which 
it  would  be  tedious  to  particularise  further.  But  it 
must  be  said  that  the  charm  of  "  Alison "  is  fully 
caught  up  by — 

"  Lenten  ys  come  with  love  to  toune, 
With  blosmen  ant  with  bryddes  roune, 

That  al  this  blisse  bringeth  ; 
Dayes-eyes  in  this  dales, 
Notes  suete  of  nytengales. 

Ilk  foul  song  singeth  ; " 


212  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

by  a  sturdy  Praise  of  Women  which  charges  gallantly 
against  the  usual  mediii?val  slanders ;  and  by  a  piece 
which,  with  "  Alison,"  is  the  flower  of  the  whole,  and 
has  the  exquisite  refrain — 

"  Blow,  northerne  wynd, 
Send  thou  me  my  suetyng, 
Blow,  uortlierne  wynd,  blou,  blou,  blou  " — 

Here  is  Tennysonian  verse  five  hundred  years  before 
Tennyson.  The  "  cry "  of  Englisli  lyric  is  on  this 
northern  wind  at  last ;  and  it  shall  never  fail  after- 
wards. 

This  seems  to  be  the  best  place  to  deal,  not  merely 
with  the  form  of  English  lyric  in  itself,  but  with  the 
general  subject  of  the  prosody  as  well  of 
the  modern  Jingiish  as  01  the  othcr  modern  literary 
languages.  languagcs.  A  vcry  great  ^  deal  has  been 
written,  with  more  and  with  less  learning,  with  in- 
genuity  greater  or  smaller,  on  the  origins  of  rhyme, 
on  the  source  of  the  decasyllabic  and  other  staple 
lines  and  stanzas ;  and,  lastly,  on  the  general  system 
of  modern  as  opposed  to  ancient  scansion.  Much  of 
this  has  been  the  result  of  really  careful  study,  and 
not  a  little  of  it  the  result  of  distinct  acuteness ;  but 
it  has  suffered  on  the  whole  from  the  supposed  need 
of  some  new  theory,  and  from  an   unwillingness   to 

1  It  is  sufficient  to  mention  here  Guest's  famous  English  Rhythms 
(ed.  Skeat,  1882),  a  book  which  at  its  first  appearance  in  1838  was  no 
doubt  a  revelation,  but  which  carries  things  too  far  ;  Dr  Schipper's 
Grundriss  dcr  Enylhchcn  Metrik  {\\ien,  1 895),  and  for  foreign  matters 
M.  Gaston  Paris's  chapter  in  his  LitUrature  Franraisc  au  Moycn  Aye. 
I  do  not  agree  with  any  of  theui,  but  I  have  a  profound  respect  for  all. 


SETTLEMENT  OF  PROSODY.  213 

accept  plain  and  obvious  facts.  These  facts,  or  the 
most  important  of  them,  may  be  summarised  as  fol- 
lows :  The  prosody  of  a  language  will  necessarily 
vary  according  to  the  pronunciation  and  composition 
of  that  language ;  but  there  are  certain  general  prin- 
ciples of  prosody  which  govern  all  languages  possess- 
ing a  certain  kinship.  These  general  principles  were. 
Historical  for  the  Westcm  branches  of  the  Aryan 
retrospect,  tongues,  vcry  early  discovered  and  formu- 
lated by  the  Greeks,  being  later  adjusted  to  somewhat 
stiffer  rules  —  to  compensate  for  less  force  of  poetic 
genius,  or  perhaps  merely  because  licence  was  not 
required — by  the  Latins.  Towards  the  end  of  the 
classical  literary  period,  however,  partly  the  increas- 
ing importance  of  the  Germanic  and  other  non-Greek 
and  non-Latin  elements  in  the  Empire,  partly  those 
inexplicable  organic  changes  which  come  from  time 
to  time,  broke  up  this  system.  Rhyme  appeared,  no 
one  knows  quite  how,  or  why,  or  whence,  and  at  the 
same  time,  though  the  general  structure  of  metres 
was  not  very  much  altered,  the  quantity  of  indi- 
vidual syllables  appears  to  have  undergone  a  complete 
change.  xVlthough  metres  quantitative  in  scheme  con- 
tinued to  be  written,  they  were  written,  as  a  rule, 
with  more  or  less  laxity ;  and  though  rhyme  was 
sometimes  adapted  to  them  in  Latin,  it  was  more  fre- 
quently used  with  a  looser  syllabic  arrangement,  re- 
taining the  divisional  characteristics  of  the  older 
prosody,  but  neglecting  quantity,  the  strict  rules  of 
elision,  and  so  forth. 

On   the   other  hand,   some   of    the   new   Teutonic 


214  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

tongues  which  were  thus  hrought  into  contact  with 
Anglo-Saxon  Latin,  and  with  which  Latin  was  brought 
prosody.  jj^^q  contact,  had  systems  of  prosody  of 
their  own,  based  on  entirely  different  principles.  The 
most  elaborate  of  these  probably,  and  the  only  one 
from  which  we  have  distinct  remains  of  undoubtedly 
old  matter  in  considerable  quantities,  is  Anglo-Saxon, 
though  Icelandic  runs  it  close.  A  detailed  account 
of  the  peculiarities  of  this  belongs  to  the  previous 
volume :  it  is  sufficient  to  say  here  that  its  great 
characteristic  was  alliteration,  and  that  accent  played 
a  large  part,  to  the  exclusion  both  of  definite  quantity 
and  of  syllabic  identity  or  equivalence. 

While  these  were  the  states  of  things  with  regard 
to  Latin  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  tongues  most 
Eomance  Separated  from  Latin  on  the  other,  the  Ro- 
prosody.  mancc  languages,  or  daughters  of  Latin, 
had  elaborated  or  were  elaborating,  by  stages  which 
are  almost  entirely  hidden  from  us,  middle  systems, 
of  which  the  earliest,  and  in  a  way  the  most  perfect,  is 
that  of  ProvenQal,  followed  by  Northern  French  and 
Italian,  the  dialects  of  the  Spanish  Peninsula  being  a 
little  behindhand  in  elaborate  verse.  The  three  first- 
named  tongues  seem  to  have  hit  upon  the  verse  of 
ten  or  eleven  syllables,  which  later  crystallised  itself 
into  ten  for  French  and  eleven  for  Italian,  as  their 
staple  measure.^  Efforts  have  been  made  to  father 
this  directly  on  some  classical  original,  and  some  au- 
thorities have  even  been  uncritical  enough  to  speak 
of  the  connection — this  or  that — having  been  "  proved  " 

^  Vide  Dante,  Dc  Vnlgari  Eloquio. 


SETTLEMENT  OF  PROSODY.  215 

for  these  verses  or  others.  jSTo  such  proof  has  been 
given,  and  none  is  possible.  What  is  certain,  and 
alone  certain,  is  that  whereas  the  chief  literary  metre 
of  the  last  five  centuries  of  Latin  had  been  dactylic 
and  trisyllabic,  this,  the  chief  metre  of  the  daughter 
tongues,  and  by  -  and  -  by  almost  their  only  one,  was 
disyllabic — iambic,  or  trochaic,  as  the  case  may  be,  but 
generally  iambic.  Ehyme  became  by  degrees  an  in- 
variable or  almost  invariable  accompaniment,  and 
while  quantity,  strictly  speaking,  almost  disappeared 
(some  will  have  it  that  it  quite  disappeared  from 
French),  a  syllabic  uniformity  more  rigid  than  any 
which  had  prevailed,  except  in  the  case  of  lyric  mea- 
sures like  the  Alcaic,  became  the  rule.  Even  elision 
was  very  greatly  restricted,  though  ctesura  was  pretty 
strictly  retained,  and  an  additional  servitude  was  im- 
posed by  the  early  adoption  in  French  of  the  fixed 
alternation  of  "  masculine  "  and  "  feminine  "  rhymes — 
that  is  to  say,  of  rhymes  with,  and  rhymes  without, 
the  mute  e. 

But  the  prosody  of  the  Eomance  tongues  is  perfectly 
simple  and  intelligible,  except  in  the  one  crux  of  the 
Engiiiii  qucstiou  how  it  came  into  being,  and  what 
•proiotiy.  pg^j-j^  "popular"  poetry  played  in  it.  We 
find  it,  almost  from  the  first,  full-blown:  and  only 
minor  refinements  or  improvements  are  introduced 
afterwards.  With  English  prosody  it  is  very  differ- 
ent.^    As  has  been  said,  the  older  prosody  itself,  with 

^  What  is  said  here  of  English  appHes  with  certain  modifications  to 
German,  though  the  almost  entire  loss  of  Old  German  poetry  and  the 
comparatively  late  date  of  Middle  make  the  process  less  striking  and 


216  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

the  older  verse,  seems  to  have  to  a  great  extent  died 
out  even  before  the  Conquest,  and  what  verse  was 
written  in  the  alliterative  measures  afterwards  was  of 
a  feeble  and  halting  kind.  Even  when,  as  the  authors 
The  later  of  later  volumos  of  this  series  will  have 
alliteration,  ^q  show,  alliterative  verse  was  taken  up 
with  something  like  a  set  purpose  during  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries,  its  character  was  wholly 
changed,  and  though  some  very  good  work  was  writ- 
ten in  it,  it  was  practically  all  literary  exercise.  It 
frequently  assumed  regular  stanza -forms,  the  lines 
also  frequently  fell  into  regular  quantitative  shapes, 
such  as  the  heroic,  the  Alexandrine,  and  the  tetra- 
meter. Above  all,  the  old  strict  and  accurate  com- 
bination of  a  limited  amount  of  alliteration,  jealously 
adjusted  to  words  important  in  sense  and  rhythm, 
was  exchanged  for  a  profusion  of  alliterated  syllables, 
often  with  no  direct  rhythmical  duty  to  pay,  and  con- 
stantly leading  to  mere  senseless  and  tasteless  jingle, 
if  not  to  the  positive  coining  of  fantastic  or  improper 
locutions  to  get  the  "  artful  aid." 

Meanwhile  the  real  prosody  of  English  had  been 
elaborated,  in  the  usual  blending  fashion  of  the  race, 
Thenew     ^J  ^^^  intricate, yet,  as  it  happens,  an  easily 
verse.         traccablc  series  of  compromises  and  natur- 
alisations.    By  the    end  of   the   twelfth  century,  as 

more  obscure,  and  the  greater  talent  of  the  individual  imitators 
of  French  interferes  more  with  the  process  of  insensible  shaping  and 
growth.  German  prosody,  despite  the  charm  of  its  lyric  measures, 
has  never  acquired  the  perfect  combination  of  freedom  and  order 
which  we  find  in  English,  as  may  be  seen  by  comparing  the  best 
blank  verse  of  the  two. 


SETTLEMENT  OF  PROSODY,  217 

we  have  seen,  rhyme  was  creeping  in  to  supersede 
alliteration,  and  a  regular  arrangement  of  elastic  syl- 
labic equivalents  or  strict  syllabic  values  was  taking 
the  place  of  the  irregular  accented  lengths.  -It  does 
not  appear  that  the  study  of  the  classics  had  anything 
directly  to  do  with  this :  it  is  practically  certain  that 
the  influence  on  the  one  hand  of  Latin  hymns  and 
the  Church  services,  and  on  the  other  of  French  poetry, 
had  very  much. 

Ehyme  is  to  the  modern  European  ear  so  agreeable, 

if  not  so  indispensable,  an  ornament  of  verse,  that,  once 

heard,  it  is  sure  to  creep  in,  and  can  only 

Rhyme  ana  ■*-  '' 

syllabic         bc   cxpclled   by  deliberate  and  unnatural 

equivalence.  i_ij_j?  tj_  j.-  it 

crotchet  from  any  but  narrative  and  dra- 
matic poetry.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  almost  inevit- 
able that  when  rhyme  is  expected,  the  lines  which  it 
tips  should  be  reduced  to  an  equal  or  at  any  rate  an 
equivalent  length.  Otherwise  the  expectation  of  the 
ear — that  the  final  ring  should  be  led  up  to  by  regular 
and  equable  rhythm — is  baulked.  If  this  is  not  done,  as 
in  what  we  call  doggerel  rhyme,  an  effect  of  grotesque 
is  universally  produced,  to  the  ruin  of  serious  poetic 
effect.  With  these  desiderata  present,  though  uncon- 
sciously present,  before  them,  with  the  Latin  hymn- 
writers  and  the  French  poets  for  models,  and  with 
Church  music  perpetually  starting  in  their  memories 
cadences,  iambic  or  trochaic,  dactylic  or  anaptestic,  to 
which  to  set  their  own  verse,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
English  poets  should  have  accompanied  the  rapid 
changes  of  their  language  itself  with  parallel  rapidity 
of  metrical  innovation.    Quantity  they  observed  loosely 


218  EUEOPEAN    LITEEATUKE,    1100-1300. 

— quantity  in  modern  languages  is  always  loose :  but 
it  does  not  follow  that  they  ignored  it  altogether. 

Those  who  insist  that  they  did  ignore  it,  and  who 
painfully  search  for  verses  of  so  many  "  accents,"  for 
Accent  and  "  scctions,"  for  "  pauscs,"  and  what  not, 
quantity.  ^j,g  Confronted  with  difticulties  throughout 
the  whole  course  of  English  poetry :  there  is  hardly  a 
page  of  that  brilliant,  learned,  instructive,  invaluable 
piece  of  wrong-headedness,  Dr  Guest's  English  Rhythms, 
which  does  not  bristle  with  them.  But  at  no  time  are 
these  difficulties  so  great  as  during  our  present  period, 
and  especially  at  the  close  of  it.  Let  any  man  who 
has  no  "prize  to  fight,"  no  thesis  to  defend,  take 
any  characteristic  piece  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  and 
"Alison,"  place  them  side  by  side,  read  them  aloud 
together,  scan  them  carefully  with  the  eye,  compare 
each  separately  and  both  together  with  as  many  other 
examples  of  poetic  arrangement  as  he  likes.  He 
must,  I  think,  be  hopelessly  blinded  by  prejudice  if 
he  does  not  come  to  the  conclusion  that  tliere  is  a  gulf 
between  the  systems  of  which  these  two  poems  are 
examples — that  if  the  first  is  "  accentual,"  "  sectional," 
and  what  not,  then  these  same  words  are  exactly  not 
the  words  which  ought  to  be  applied  to  the  second.^ 
And  he  will  further  see  that  with  "  Alison "  there  is 
not  the  slightest  difficulty  whatever,  but  that,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  the  natural  and  all  but  inevitable  thing 

^  Of  course  there  is  plenty  of  alliteration  in  "  Alison."  That  orna- 
ment is  too  grateful  to  the  English  ear  ever  to  have  ceased  or  to  be 
likely  to  cease  out  of  English  poetry.  But  it  has  ceased  to  possess 
any  metrical  value  ;  it  Jias  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  structure 
of  the  line. 


SETTLEMENT  OF  PROSODY.  219 

to  do  to  scan  the  piece  according  to  classical  laws, 
allowing  only  much  more  licence  of  "  common "  syl- 
lables— common  in  themselves  and  by  position — than 
in  Latin,  and  rather  more  than  in  Greek. 

Yet  another  conclusion  may  perhaps  be  risked,  and 
that  is  that  this  change  of  prosody  was  either  directly 
The  gain  of    caused  by,  or  in  singular  coincidence  was 
form.  associated  with,  a  great  enlargement  of  the 

range  and  no  slight  improvement  of  the  quality  of 
poetry.  Anglo-Saxon  verse  at  its  best  has  grandeur, 
mystery,  force,  a  certain  kind  of  pathos.  But  it  is 
almost  entirely  devoid  of  sweetness,  of  all  the  lighter 
artistic  attractions,  of  power  to  represent  other  than 
religious  passion,  of  adaptability  to  the  varied  uses  of 
lyric.  All  these  additional  gifts,  and  in  no  slight 
measure,  have  now  been  given ;  and  there  is  surely 
an  almost  fanatical  hatred  of  form  in  the  refusal  to 
connect  the  gain  with  those  changes,  in  vocabulary 
first,  in  prosody  secondly,  which  have  been  noted. 
For  there  is  not  only  the  fact,  but  there  is  a  more 
than  plausible  reason  for  the  fact.  The  alliterative 
accentual  verse  of  indefinite  length  is  obviously  un- 
suited  for  all  the  lighter,  and  for  some  of  the  more 
serious,  purposes  of  verse.  Unless  it  is  at  really  heroic 
height  (and  at  this  height  not  even  Shakespeare  can 
keep  poetry  invariably)  it  must  necessarily  be  flat, 
awkward,  prosaic,  heavy,  all  which  qualities  are  the 
worst  foas  of  the  Muses,  The  new  equipments  may 
not  have  been  indispensable  to  the  poet's  soaring — 
they  may  not  be  the  greater  wings  of  his  song,  the 
mighty   pinions   that   take   him    beyond    Space    and 


220  EUEOPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

Time  into  Eternity  and  the  Infinite.  But  they  are 
most  admirable  talaria,  ankle-winglets  enabling  him 
to  skim  and  scud,  to  direct  his  flight  this  way  and 
that,  to  hover  as  well  as  to  tower,  even  to  run  at  need 
as  well  as  to  tly. 

That  a  danger  was  at  hand,  the  danger  of  too  great 
restriction  in  the  syllabic  direction,  has  been  admitted. 
The  greatest  poet  of  the  fourteenth  century  in  England 
— the  greatest,  for  the  matter  of  that,  from  the  be- 
ginning till  the  sixteenth — went  some  way  in  this 
path,  and  if  Chaucer's  English  followers  had  been  men 
of  genius  we  might  have  been  sorely  trammelled.  For- 
tunately Lydgate  and  Occleve  and  Hawes  showed  the 
dangers  rather  than  the  attractions  of  strictness,  and 
the  contemporary  practice  of  alliterative  irregulars 
kept  alive  the  appetite  for  liberty.  But  at  this  time 
— at  our  time — it  was  restriction,  regulation,  quanti- 
fication, metrical  arrangement,  that  English  needed; 
and  it  received  them. 

These  remarks   are  of   course   not  presented  as  a 
complete  account,  even  in  summary,  of  English,  much 
Tiie" accent"  ^^ss  of  European  prosody.     They  are  barely 
theory.  morc  than  the  heads  of  such  a  summary, 

or  than  indications  of  the  line  which  the  inquiry 
might,  and  in  the  author's  view  should,  take.  Perhaps 
they  may  be  worked  out — or  rather  the  working  out 
of  them  may  be  published  —  more  fully  hereafter. 
But  for  the  present  they  may  possibly  be  useful  as  a 
protest  against  the  "accent"  and  "stress"  theories 
which  have  been  so  common  of  late  years  in  regard 


SETTLEMENT  OF  PEOSODY.  221 

to  English  poetry,  and  which,  though  not  capable  of 
being  applied  in  quite  the  same  fashion  to  the 
Eomance  languages,  have  had  their  counterparts  in 
attempts  to  decry  the  application  of  classical  prosody 
(which  has  never  been  very  well  understood  on  the 
Continent)  to  modern  tongues.  No  one  can  speak 
otherwise  than  respectfully  of  Dr  Guest,  whose  book 
is  certainly  one  of  the  most  patient  and  ingenious 
studies  of  the  kind  to  be  found  in  any  literature,  and 
whose  erudition,  at  a  time  when  such  erudition  needed 
far  greater  efforts  than  now,  cannot  be  too  highly 
praised.  But  it  is  a  besetting  sin  or  disease  of 
Englishmen  in  all  matters,  after  pooh-poohing  innova- 
tion, to  go  blindly  in  for  it ;  and  I  cannot  but  think 
that  Dr  Guest's  accentual  theory,  after  being  for 
years  mainly  neglected,  has,  for  years  again,  been 
altogether  too  greedily  swallowed.  It  is  not  of  course 
a  case  necessarily  of  want  of  scholarship,  or  want  of 
ear,  for  there  are  few  better  scholars  or  poets  than 
]\Ir  Robert  Bridges,  who,  though  not  a  mere  Guestite, 
holds  theories  of  prosody  which  seem  to  me  even 
less  defensible  than  Guest's.  But  it  is,  I  think,  a 
case  of  rather  misguided  patriotism,  which  thinks  it 
necessary  to  invent  an  English  prosody  for  English 
poems. 

This  is  surely   a   mistake.     Allowances  in  degree, 

in  shade,  in  local  colour,  there  must  of  course  be  in 

prosody  as  in  other  things.     The  develop- 

I  nit  ial  fallacies.  .  •    i  c 

ments,  typical  and  special,  of  English 
prosody  in  the  nineteenth  century  cannot  be  quite 
the  same  as  those  of  Greek  two  thousand  years  ago, 


222  EUROPEAN   LITEUATURE,    1100-i;iOO, 

or  of  French  to-day.  But  if,  as  I  see  not  the  slightest 
reason  for  doubting,  prosody  is  not  an  artificially 
acquired  art  but  a  natural  result  of  the  natural 
desires,  the  universal  organs  of  humanity,  it  is  exces- 
sively improbable  that  the  prosodic  results  of  nations 
so  nearly  allied  to  each  other,  and  so  constantly 
studying  each  other's  work,  as  Greeks,  Eomans,  and 
modern  Europeans,  should  be  in  any  great  degree 
different.  If  quantity,  if  syllabic  equivalence  and  so 
forth,  do  not  display  themselves  in  Anglo-Saxon  or  in 
Icelandic,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  poetry  of 
these  nations  was  after  all  comparatively  small,  rather 
isolated,  and  in  the  conditions  of  extremely  early 
development — a  childish  thing  to  which  there  is  not 
the  slightest  rhyme  or  reason  for  straining  ourselves 
to  assimilate  the  things  of  manhood.  That  accent 
modified  English  prosody  nobody  need  deny ;  there  is 
no  doubt  that  the  very  great  freedom  of  equivalence — 
which  makes  it,  for  instance,  at  least  theoretically 
possible  to  compose  an  English  heroic  line  of  five 
tribrachs — and  the  immense  predominance  of  common 
syllables  in  the  language,  are  due  in  some  degree  to  a 
continuance  of  accentual  influence. 

But  to  go  on  from  this,  as  Dr  Guest  and  some  of  his 
followers  have  done,  to  the  subjection  of  the  whole 
A,uiflnaipervcJ^'^^^^^^^(^  vocabulary  of  classical  prosody 
sities  thereof .  to  a  sort  of  prccmunive,  to  hold  up  the 
hands  in  horror  at  the  very  name  of  a  tribrach,  and 
exhibit  symptoms  of  catalejDsy  at  the  word  catalectic 
— to  ransack  the  dictionary  for  unnatural  words  or 


SETTLEMENT   OF    PllOSODY.  223 

uses  of  words  like  "  catch,"  and  "  stop,"  and  "  pause," 
where  a  perfectly  clear  and  perfectly  flexible  ter- 
minology is  ready  to  your  hand — this  does  seem  to 
me  in  another  sense  a  very  childish  thing  indeed,  and 
one  that  cannot  be  too  soon  put  away.  It  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  the  extravagances,  the  un- 
natural contortions  of  scansion,  the  imj)utations  of 
irregularity  and  impropriety  on  the  very  greatest 
poets  with  which  Dr  Guest's  book  swarms,  must 
force  themselves  on  any  one  who  studies  that  book 
thoroughly  and  impartially.  When  theory  leads  to 
the  magisterial  indorsement  of  "  gross  fault "  on  some 
of  the  finest  passages  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton, 
because  they  "  violate  "  Dr  Guest's  privy  law  of  "  the 
final  pause " ;  when  we  are  told  that  "  section  9,"  as 
Dr  Guest  is  pleased  to  call  that  admirable  form  of 
"sixes,"  the  anapa3St  followed  by  two  iambs,^  one  of 
the  great  sources  of  music  in  the  ballad  metre,  is  "  a 
verse  which  has  very  little  to  recommend  it " ;  when 
one  of  Shakespeare's  secrets,  the  majestic  full  stop 
before  the  last  word  of  the  line,  is  black-marked  as 
"  opposed  to  every  principle  of  accentual  rhythm,"  then 
the  thing  becomes  not  so  much  outrageous  as  absurd. 
Prosody  respectfully  and  intelligently  attempting  to 
explain  how  the  poets  produce  their  best  things  is 
useful   and  agreeable :    when  it  makes  an    arbitrary 

^  His  instance  is  Burns's — 

"  Like  a  rogue  |  for  for  |  gerie." 

It  is  a  pity  he  did  not  reinforce  it  with  many  of  the  finest  lines  in 
The  Ancient  Mariner. 


224  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

theory  beforehand,  and  dismisses  the  best  things  as 
bad  because  they  do  not  agree  therewith,  it  becomes  a 
futile  nuisance.  And  I  belie \e  that  there  is  no  period 
of  our  literature  which,  when  studied,  will  do  more  to 
prevent  or  correct  such  fatuity  than  this  very  period 
of  Early  Middle  English. 


225 


CHAPTEE  VI. 

MIDDLE  HIGH  GERMAN  POETRY. 

POSITION      OF     GEEJIANY MERIT     OF     ITS     POETRY FOLK-EPICS  :      THE 

'  NIBELUNGENLIED  ' — THE  '  VOLSUNGA  SAGA  ' — THE  GERMAN  VERSION 
—  METRES  —  RHYME      AND      LANGUAGE  —  '  KUDRUN  '  —  SHORTER 

NATIONAL    EPICS — LITERARY    POETRY ITS    FOUR    CHIEF     MASTERS 

EXCELLENCE,  BOTH  NATURAL  AND  ACQUIRED,  OF  GERMAN  VERSE — 
ORIGINALITY    OP    ITS    ADAPTATION — THE    PIONEERS  :    HEINRICH    VON 

VELDEKE  —  GOTTFRIED     OF     STRASBURG HARTMANN     VON    AUE 

'EREC  DER  WANDER^RE'   and  'IWEIN' LYRICS — THE  "BOOKLETS" 

— ■'  DER  ARME  HEINRICH  ' — WOLFRAM  VON  ESCHENBACH — '  TITUREL  ' 
— 'WILLEHALM' — 'PARZIVAL' — WALTHER  VON  DER  VOGELWEIDE — 
PERSONALITY   OF   THE   POETS — THE   MINNESINGERS   GENERALLY. 

It  must  have  been  already  noticed  that  one  main  rea- 
son for  the  unsurpassed  literary  interest  of  this  present 
Position  of  period  is  that  almost  all  the  principal 
Germany.  European  nations  contribute,  in  their  dif- 
ferent ways,  elements  to  that  interest.  The  contri- 
bution is  not  in  all  cases  one  of  positive  literary  pro- 
duction, of  so  much  matter  of  the  first  value  actually 
added  to  the  world's  library.  But  in  some  cases  it  is  ; 
and  in  the  instance  to  which  we  come  at  present  it  is 
so  in  a  measure  approached  by  no  other  country  ex- 

P 


226  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

cept  France  and  perhaps  Iceland.  Nor  is  Germany,^ 
as  every  other  country  except  Iceland  may  be  said  to 
be,  wholly  a  debtor  or  vassal  to  France  herself.  Partly 
she  is  so ;  of  the  three  chief  divisions  of  Middle  High 
German  poetry  (for  prose  here  practically  does  not 
count),  the  folk-epic,  the  "  art-epic,"  as  the  Germans 
themselves  not  very  happily  call  it,  and  the  lyric — 
the  second  is  always,  and  the  third  to  no  small  ex- 
tent, what  might  punningly  be  called  in  copyhold  of 
France.  But  even  the  borrowed  material  is  treated 
with  such  intense  individuality  of  spirit  that  it  almost 
acquires  independence ;  and  part  of  the  matter,  as  has 
been  said,  is  not  borrowed  at  all. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  for  some  curious  reason 

French  literary  critics,  not  usually  remarkable  for  lack 

,,  .,  , .,      of  national  vanity,  have  been  by  no  means 

Merit  of  its  J  '  •' 

■jjoetry.  cxcessivc  in  their  laudations  of  the  earlier 

literature  of  their  country.  The  opposite  is  the  case 
with  those  of  Germany,  and  the  rather  extravagant 
patriotism  of  some  of  their  expressions  may  perhaps 
have  had  a  bad  effect  on  some  foreign  readers.  It 
cannot,  for  instance,  be  otherwise  than  disgusting  to 
even  rudimentary  critical  feeling  to  be  told  in  the 

^  The  most  accessible  History  of  German  Literature  is  that  of 
Scherer  (English  translation,  2  vols.,  Oxford,  1886),  a  book  of  fair 
information  and  with  an  excellent  bibliography,  but  not  very  well 
arranged,  and  too  full  of  extra  -  literary  matter.  Carlyle's  great 
Nihclungenlied  Essay  {E&s<tys,  vol.  iii.)  can  never  be  obsolete  save  in 
unimportant  matters  :  that  which  follows  on  Early  German  Literatiirc 
is  good,  but  less  good.  Mr  Gosse's  Northern  Studies  (1879)  contains 
a  very  agreeable  paper  on  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide.  The  Wag- 
nerites  have  naturally  of  late  years  dealt  much  with  Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach,  but  seldom  from  a  literary  point  of  view. 


MIDDLE   HIGH   GEKMAN   POETRY,  227 

same  breath  that  the  first  period  of  German  litera- 
ture was  "richer  in  inventive  genius  than  any  that 
followed  it,"  and  that  "  nothing  but  fragments  of  a 
single  song  ^  remain  to  us "  from  this  first  period — 
fragments,  it  may  be  added,  which,  though  interesting 
enough,  can,  in  no  possible  judgment  that  can  be 
called  judgment,  rank  as  in  any  way  first-rate  poetry. 
So,  too,  the  habit  of  comparing  the  NiheluTigenlicd  to 
the  niad  and  Kudrun  to  the  Odyssey  (parallels  not 
far  removed  from  the  Thucydides-and-Tennyson  order) 
may  excite  resentment.  But  the  Middle  High  German 
verse  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  is  in  it- 
self of  such  interest,  such  variety,  such  charm,  that  if 
only  it  be  approached  in  itself,  and  not  through  the 
medium  of  its  too  officious  ushers,  its  effect  on  any 
real  taste  for  poetry  is  undoubted. 

The  three  divisions  above  sketched  may  very  well 
be  taken  in  tlie  order  given.  The  great  folk-epics 
just  mentioned,  with  some  smaller  poems,  such  as 
Konig  Bother,  are  almost  invariably  anonymous ;  the 
translators  or  adaptors  from  the  French — Gottfried 
von  Strasburg,  Hartmann  von  Aue,  Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach,  and  others — are  at  least  known  by  name, 
if  we  do  not  know  much  else  about  them ;  and  this  is 
also  the  case  witli  the  Lyric  poets,  especially  the  best 
of  them,  the  exquisite  singer  known  as  Walter  of  the 
Bird-Meadow. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  whole  literary  energy 
of  a  nation  which  is  commentatorial  or  nothing, 
should  be  flung  on  such  a  subject  as  the  Kibching- 

^  HUdebrand  and  Maduhrand. 


228  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

enlied  ;  ^  the  amount  of  work  expended  on  the  subject 
Foik-qncs-The  ^7  Genuaus  during  the  century  in  which 
Nibeiungeniied.  ^\^q  poeui  has  been  knowu  is  enormous,  and 
might  cause  despair,  if  happily  it  were  not  for  the 
most  part  negligible.  The  poem  served  as  a  principal 
ground  in  the  battle — not  yet  at  an  end,  but  now  in  a 
more  or  less  languid  condition — between  the  believers 
in  conglomerate  epic,  the  upholders  of  the  theory  that 
long  early  poems  are  always  a  congeries  of  still  earlier 
ballads  or  shorter  chants,  and  the  advocates  of  their 
integral  condition.  The  authorship  of  the  poem,  its 
date,  and  its  relation  to  previous  work  or  tradition, 
with  all  possible  excursions  and  alarums  as  to  sun- 
myths  and  so  forth,  have  been  discussed  ad  nauseam. 
Literary  history,  as  here  understood,  need  not  concern 
itself  much  about  such  things.  It  is  sufficient  to  say 
that  the  authorship  of  the  Lied  in  its  present  condition 
is  quite  unknown ;  that  its  date  would  appear  to  be 
about  the  centre  of  our  period,  or,  in  other  words,  not 
earlier  than  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  or  later 
than  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth,  and  that,  as  far  as 
the  subject  goes,  w^e  undoubtedly  have  handlings  of  it 
TTicVoisunga  ^^  Icclaudic  (the  so-called  Volsunga  Saga), 
'^aga.  and  still  earlier  verse- dealings  in  the  Elder 

Edda,  which  are  older,  and  probably  much  older,  than 
the  German  poem.^    They  are  not  only  older,  but  they 

1  Ed.  Bartsch.     6th  ed.     Leipzig,  1886. 

"  For  the  verse  originals  see  Vigfusson  and  Powell's  Corpus  Pocticum 
Boreal.e  (Oxford,  1883),  vol.  i.  The  verse  and  prose  alike  will  be  found 
conveniently  translated  in  a  cheap  little  volume  of  the  ''  Camelot 
Library,"  The  Volsunga  Saga,  by  W.  Morris  and  E.  Magnusson 
(London,   1888). 


MIDDLE   HIGH    GERMAN   TOETEY.  229 

are  different.  As  a  Volsung  story,  the  interest  is 
centred  on  the  ancestor  of  Sigurd  (Sigfried  in  the 
later  poem),  on  his  acqviisitiou  of  tlie  hoard  of  the 
dwarf  Andvari  by  slaying  the  dragon  Fafnir,  its 
guardian,  and  on  the  tale  of  his  love  for  the  Amazon 
Brynhild;  how  by  witchcraft  he  is  beguiled  to  wed 
instead  Gudrun  the  daughter  of  Giuki,  while  Gunnar, 
Gudrun's  brother,  marries  Brynhild  by  the  assistance 
of  Sigurd  himself ;  how  the  sisters-in-law  quarrel,  with 
the  result  that  Gudrun's  brothers  slay  Sigurd,  on 
whose  funeral-pyre  Brynhild  (having  never  ceased  to 
love  him  and  wounded  herself  mortally),  is  by  her  own 
will  burnt  •  and  how  Gudrun,  having  married  King 
Atli,  Brynhild's  brother,  achieves  vengeance  on  her 
own  brethren  by  his  means.  A  sort  of  coda  of  the 
story  tells  of  the  third  marriage  of  Gudrun  to  King 
Jonakr,  of  the  cruel  fate  of  Swanhild,  her  daughter 
by  Sigurd  (who  was  so  fair  that  when  she  gazed  on  the 
wild  horses  that  were  to  tread  her  to  death  they  would 
not  harm  her;  and  her  head  had  to  be  covered  ere  they 
would  do  their  work),  of  the  further  fate  of  Swanhild's 
half-brothers  in  their  effort  to  avenge  her,  and  of  the 
final  threnos  and  death  of  Gudrun  herself. 

The  author  of  the  Nibclungenlied  (or  rather  the 
"  Nibelungen-AoiJ/t,''  for  this  is  the  older  title  of  the 
poem,  which  has  a  very  inferior  sequel  called  Die 
Klage)  has  dealt  with  the  story  very  differently.  He 
pays  no  attention  to  the  ancestry  of  Sifrit  (Sigurd), 
and  little  to  his  acquisition  of  the  hoard,  diminishes 
the  part  of  Brynhild,  stripping  it  of  all  romantic  in- 
terest as  regards  Sifrit,  and  very  largely  increases  the 


230  EUEOrEAX    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

importance  of  the  revenge  of  Cludrun,  now  called 
Kriemhild.  Only  sixteen  of  the  thirty-nine  "  aven- 
tiuren "  or  "  fyttes "  (into  which  the  poem  in  the 
edition  here  used  is  divided)  are  allotted  to  the  part 
np  to  and  including  the  murder  of  Sifrit ;  the  remain- 
ing twenty-three  deal  with  the  vengeance  of  Kriem- 
hild, who  is  herself  slain  just  when  this  vengeance  is 
complete,  the  after-piece  of  her  third  marriage  and 
the  fate  of  Swanhild  being  thus  rendered  impossible. 

Among  the  idler  parts  of  Nibelungen  discussions 
perhaps  the  idlest  are  the  attempts  made  by  partisans 
of  Icelandic  and  German  literature  respectively  to 
exalt  or  depress  these  two  handlings,  each  in  com- 
parison with  the  other.  There  is  no  real  question  of 
superiority  or  inferiority,  but  only  one  of  difference. 
The  older  handling,  in  the  Volsunga  Saga  to  some 
extent,  but  still  more  in  the  Eddaic  songs,  has  perhaps 
the  liner  touches  of  pure  clear  poetry  in  single  pas- 
sages and  phrases ;  the  story  of  Sigurd  and  Brynhild 
has  a  passion  which  is  not  found  in  the  German 
version ;  the  defeat  of  Fafnir  and  the  treacherous 
Eegin  is  excellent ;  and  the  wild  and  ferocious  story 
of  Sinfiotli,  with  which  the  saga  opens,  has  unmatched 
intensity,  well  brought  out  in  Mr  Morris's  splendid 
verse-rendering.  The  Story  of  Sigurd  the   Volsung} 

But  every  poet  has  a  perfect  right  to  deal  with  any 

story  as  he  chooses,  if  he  makes  good  poetry  of  it ;  and 

The  German   the  poct  of  the  NibeluTigenlied  is  more  than 

version.        justified  iu  tliis  respect.     By  curtailing  the 

beginning,  cutting  off  the  coda  above  mentioned  alto- 

^  4tli  edition.     London,  1887. 


MIDDLE   HIGH    GERMAN   POETRY.  231 

gether,  and  lessening  the  part  and  interest  of  Brynhild, 
he  has  lifted  Kriemhild  to  a  higher,  a  more  thoroughly 
expounded,  and  a  more  poetical  position,  and  has 
made  her  one  of  the  greatest  heroines  of  epic,  if  not 
the  greatest  in  all  literature.  The  Gudrun  of  the 
Norse  story  is  found  supplying  the  loss  of  one  hus- 
band with  the  gain  of  another  to  an  extent  perfectly 
consonant  with  Icelandic  ideas,  but  according  to  less 
insular  standards  distinctly  damaging  to  her  interest 
as  a  heroine ;  and  in  revenging  her  brothers  on  Atli, 
after  revenging  Sigurd  on  her  brothers  by  means  of 
Atli,  she  completely  alienates  all  sympathy  except  on 
a  ferocious  and  pedantic  theory  of  blood-revenge.  The 
Kriemhild  of  the  German  is  quite  free  from  this  draw- 
back ;  and  her  own  death  comes  just  when  and  as  it 
should  —  not  so  much  a  punishment  for  the  undue 
bloodthirstiness  of  her  revenge  as  an  artistic  close  to 
the  situation.  There  may  be  too  many  episodic  per- 
sonages —  Dietrich  of  Bern,  for  instance,  has  ex- 
tremely little  to  do  in  this  galley.  But  the  strength, 
thoroughness,  and  in  its  own  savage  way  charm  of 
Kriemhild's  character,  and  the  incomparable  series  of 
battles  between  the  Burgundian  princes  and  Etzel's 
men  in  the  later  cantos — cantos  which  contain  the 
very  best  poetical  fighting  in  the  history  of  the  world 
— far  more  than  redeem  this.  The  Nihdaiigenlicd  is 
a  very  great  poem ;  and  with  Bcoiviilf  (the  oldest, 
but  the  least  interesting  on  the  whole),  Boland  (the 
most  artistically  finished  in  form),  and  the  Poem  of  the 
Cicl  (the  cheerfullest  and  perhaps  the  fullest  of  char- 
acter), composes  a  quartette  of  epic  with  which  tlu; 


232  EUEOPEAN   LITEEATUEE,    1100-1300. 

literary  story  of  the  great  European  literary  nations 
most  appropriately  begins.  In  bulk,  dramatic  com- 
pleteness, and  a  certain  furia,  the  Nihelungenlied, 
though  the  youngest  and  probably  the  least  original, 
is  the  greatest  of  the  four. 

The  form,  though  not  finished  with  the  perfection  of 
the  French  decasyllabic,  is  by  no  means  of  a  very  un- 
couth description.  The  poem  is  written  in 
quatrains,  rhymed  couplet  and  couplet,  not 
alternately,  but  evidently  intended  for  quatrains,  inas- 
much as  the  sense  frequently  runs  on  at  the  second 
line,  but  regularly  stops  at  the  fourth.  The  normal 
line  of  which  these  quatrains  are  composed  is  a  thir- 
teen-syllabled  one  divided  by  a  central  pause,  so  that 
the  first  half  is  an  iambic  dimeter  catalectic,  and  the 
second  an  iambic  dimeter  hypercatalectic. 

"  Von  einer  isenstangeii :  des  gie  dem  helde  not." 

The  first  half  sometimes  varies  from  this  norm,  though 
not  very  often,  the  alteration  usually  taking  the  form 
of  the  loss  of  the  first  syllable,  so  that  the  half-line 
consists  of  three  trochees.  The  second  half  is  much 
more  variable.  Sometimes,  in  the  same  way  as  with 
the  first,  a  syllable  is  dropped  at  the  opening,  and 
the  half-line  becomes  similarly  trochaic.  Sometimes 
there  is  a  double  rhyme  instead  of  a  single,  making 
seven  syllables,  though  not  altering  the  rhythm  ;  and 
sometimes  this  is  extended  to  a  full  octosyllable.  But 
this  variety  by  no  means  results  in  cacophony  or  con- 
fusion ;  the  general  swing  of  the  metre  is  well  main- 
tained, and  maintains  itself  in  turn  on  the  ear. 


MIDDLE  HIGH   GERMAN   POETRY.  233 

In  the  rhymes,  as  in  those  of  all  early  rhymed 
poems,  there  is  a  certain  monotony.  Just  as  in  the 
Rhyme  and  probably  Contemporary  Layamon  the  poet 
language.  ^g  tempted  into  rhyme  chiefly  by  such  easy 
opportunities  as  "other"  and  "brother,"  "king"  and 
"thing,"  so  here,  though  rhyme  is  the  rule,  and  not, 
as  there,  the  exception,  certain  pairs,  especially  "  wip  " 
and  "  lip  "  ("  wife  "  and  "  body  "),  "  sach  "  and  "  sprach," 
"  geben  "  and  "  geleben,"  "  tot  "  and  "  not,"  recur  per- 
haps a  little  too  often  for  the  ear's  perfect  comfort. 
But  this  is  natural  and  extremely  pardonable.  The 
language  is  exceedingly  clear  and  easy — far  nearer  to 
German  of  the  present  day  than  Layamon's  own  verse, 
or  the  prose  of  the  Ancren  Riivle,  is  to  English  prose 
and  verse  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  the  differences 
being,  as  a  rule,  rather  matters  of  spelling  or  phrase 
than  of  actual  vocabulary.  It  is  very  well  suited  both 
to  the  poet's  needs  and  to  the  subject ;  there  being 
little  or  nothing  of  that  stammer — as  it  may  be  called 
— which  is  not  uncommon  in  mediaeval  work,  as  if  the 
writer  were  trying  to  find  words  that  he  cannot  find 
for  a  thought  which  he  cannot  fully  shape  even  to  him- 
self. In  short,  there  is  in  the  particular  kind,  stage, 
and  degree  that  accomplishment  which  distinguishes 
the  greater  from  the  lesser  achievements  of  literature. 
Kudrun  ^  or  Ckulrun  —  it  is  a  little  curious  that 
this  should  be  the  name  of  the  original  joint-heroine 
of  the  NibeluTigenlied,  of  the  heroine  of  one 

Kudnui. 

of  the  finest  and  most  varied  of  the  Icelandic 
sagas,  the  Laxdcela,  and  of  the  present  poem — is  far 

1  Ed.  Bartsch.     4tli  ed.     Leipzig,  18S0. 


234  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

less  known  to  general  students  of  literature  than  its 
companion.  Nor  can  it  be  said  taat  this  comparative 
neglect  is  wholly  undeserved.  It  is  an  interesting 
poem  enough ;  but  neither  in  story  nor  in  character- 
interest,  in  arrangement  nor  in  execution,  can  it  vie 
with  the  Nihchingen,  of  which  in  formal  points  it  has 
been  thought  to  be  a  direct  imitation.  The  stanza  is 
much  the  same,  except  tliat  there  is  a  much  more 
general  tendency  to  arrange  the  first  couplet  in  single 
masculine  rhyme  and  the  second  in  feminine,  while 
the  second  half  of  the  fourth  line  is  curiously  pro- 
longed to  either  ten  or  eleven  syllables.  The  first 
refinement  may  be  an  improvement :  the  second  cer- 
tainly is  not,  and  makes  it  very  difficult  to  a  modern 
ear  to  get  a  satisfactory  swing  on  the  verse.  The 
language,  moreover  (though  this  is  a  point  on  which 
I  speak  with  some  dittidence),  has  a  slightly  more 
archaic  cast,  as  of  intended  archaism,  than  is  the 
case  with  the  Nibdungcn. 

As  for  matter,  the  poem  has  the  interest,  always 
considerable  to  English  readers,  of  dealing  with  the 
sea,  and  the  shores  of  the  sea ;  and,  like  the  Nibelnng- 
nilied,  it  seems  to  have  had  older  forms,  of  which 
some  remains  exist  in  the  Xorse.  But  there  is  less 
coincidence  of  story :  and  the  most  striking  incident 
in  the  Norse — an  unending  battle,  where  the  combat- 
ants, killed  every  night,  come  alive  again  every  day — 
is  in  the  German  a  merely  ordinary  "  battle  of  Wul- 
pensand,"  where  one  side  has  the  worst,  and  cloisters 
are  founded  for  the  repose  of  the  dead.  On  the  other 
hand,  Kudrun,  while   rationalised   in   some  respects 


MIDDLE  HIGH    GEK:\rAN    POETRY.  235 

and  Christianised  in  others,  has  the  extravagance,  not 
so  much  primitive  as  carelessly  artificial,  of  the  later 
romances.  Eomance  has  a  special  charter  to  neglect 
chronology ;  but  the  chronology  here  is  exceptionally 
wanton.  After  the  above-mentioned  Battle  of  Wul- 
pensand,  the  beaten  side  resigns  itself  quite  comfort- 
ably to  wait  till  the  sons  of  the  slain  grow  up :  aud 
to  suit  this  arrangement  the  heroine  remains  in  ill- 
treated  captivity — washing  clothes  by  the  sea-shore — 
for  fifteen  years  or  so.  And  even  thus  the  climax  is 
not  reached ;  for  Gudrun's  companion  in  this  unpleas- 
ant task,  and  apparently  (since  they  are  married  at  the 
same  time)  her  equal,  or  nearly  so,  in  age,  has  in  the 
exordium  of  the  poem  also  been  the  companion  of 
Gudrun's  grandmother  in  durance  to  some  griffins,  from 
whom  they  were  rescued  hj  Gudrun's  grandfather. 

One  does  not  make  peddling  criticisms  of  this  kind 
on  any  legend  that  has  the  true  poetic  character  of 
power  —  of  sweeping  the  reader  along  with  it ;  but 
this  I,  at  least,  can  hardly  find  in  Kitdrun.  It  consists 
of  three  or  perhaps  four  parts :  the  initial  adventures 
of  Child  Hagen  of  Ireland  with  the  griffins  who  carry 
him  off;  the  wooing  of  his  daughter  Hilde  by  King 
Hetel,  whose  ambassadors,  Wate,  Morunc,  and  liorant, 
play  a  great  part  throughout  the  poem ;  the  sub- 
sequent wooing  of  her  daughter  Gudrun,  and  her 
imprisonment  and  ill-usage  by  Gerlind,  her  wooer's 
mother;  her  rescue  by  her  lover  Herwig  after  many 
years,  and  the  slaugliter  of  her  tyrants,  especially 
Gerlind,  which  "  Wate  der  alte  "  makes.  There  is 
also  a  generally  happy  ending,  which,  rather  contrary 


236  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

to  the  somewhat  ferocious  use  and  wont  of  these 
poems,  is  made  to  include  Hartmuth,  Gudrun's  unsuc- 
cessful wooer,  and  his  sister  Ortrun.  The  most  note- 
worthy character,  perhaps,  is  the  above  -  mentioned 
Wate  (or  Wade),  who  is  something  like  Hagen  in  the 
Nilelungenlied  as  far  as  valour  and  ferocity  go,  but  is 
more  of  a  subordinate.  Gudrun  herself  has  good 
touches — especially  where  in  her  joy  at  the  appear- 
ance of  her  rescuers  she  flings  the  hated  "  wash  "  into 
the  sea,  and  in  one  or  two  other  passages.  But  she 
is  nothing  like  such  a  person  as  Brynhild  in  the 
Volsung  story  or  Kriemhild  in  the  Nihelungcnlied. 
Even  the  "  wash  "  incident  and  the  state  which,  in  the 
teeth  of  her  enemies,  she  takes  upon  her  afterwards — 
the  finest  thing  in  the  poem,  though  it  frightens  some 
German  critics  who  see  beauties  elsewhere  that  are 
not  very  clear  to  eyes  not  native  —  fail  to  give  her 
this  personality.  A  better  touch  of  nature  still, 
though  a  slight  one,  is  her  lover  Herwig's  fear,  when 
he  meets  with  a  slight  mishap  before  the  castle  of  her 
prison,  that  she  may  see  it  and  reproach  him  with  it 
after  they  are  married.  But  on  the  whole,  Kudrun, 
though  an  excellent  story  of  adventure,  is  not  a  great 
poem  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Nihelwngenlied  is  one. 

Besides  these  two  long  poems  (the  greater  of  which, 
the  NihchLiigenlied,  connects  itself  indirectly  with 
others  through  the  personage  of  Dietrich  ^)  there  is  a 

^  The  very  name  of  this  remarkable  personage  seems  to  have  exer- 
cised a  fascination  over  the  early  German  mind,  and  appears  as  given 
to  others  (Wolfdietrich,  Hugdietrich)  who  have  nothing  to  do  with 
him  of  Verona. 


MIDDLE   HIGH   GEEMAN    POETEY.  237 

group  of  shorter  and  rather  older  pieces,  attributed  in 
Shorter  national  their  present  forms  to  the  twelfth  century, 
''^''^'^^'  and  not  much  later  than  the  German  trans- 

lation of  the  Chanson  de  Roland  by  a  priest  named 
Conrad,  which  is  sometimes  put  as  early  as  1130, 
and  the  German  translation  (see  chapter  iv.)  of  the 
Alixandre  by  Lamprecht,  which  may  be  even  older. 
Among  these  smaller  epics,  poems  on  the  favourite 
mediaeval  subjects  of  Solomon  and  Marcolf,  St  Bran- 
dan,  &c.,  are  often  classed,  but  somewhat  wrongly, 
as  they  belong  to  a  different  school.  Properly  of  the 
group  are  Konig  Bother,  Herzog  Ernst,  and  Orendel. 
All  these  suo-o-est  distinct  imitation  of  the  chansons, 
Orendel  inclining  rather  to  the  legendary  and  travel- 
ling kind  of  Jourdains  de  BlaAvies  or  Huon,  Herzog 
Ernst  to  the  more  feudal  variety.  Konig  Rother^  the 
most  important  of  the  batch,  is  a  poem  of  a  little  more 
than  five  thousand  lines,  of  rather  irregular  length  and 
rhythm,  but  mostly  very  short,  rhymed,  but  with  a  lean- 
ing towards  assonance.  The  strong  connection  of  these 
poems  witli  the  chansons  is  also  shown  by  the  fact  that 
Eother  is  made  grandfather  of  Charlemagne  and  King 
of  Eome.  Whether  he  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
actual  Lombard  King  Eother  of  the  seventh  century  is 
only  a  speculative  question ;  the  poem  itself  seems  to 
be  Bavarian,  and  to  date  from  about  1150.  The  story 
is  one  of  wooing  under  considerable  difficulties,  and 
thus  in  some  respects  at  least  nearer  to  a  roman 
d'aventures  than  a  chanson. 

It    will   depend   on   individual    taste  whether    the 

1  Ed.  Von  Bahcler.     Halle,  1884. 


238  EUROPEAN    LITEKATUEE,    1100-1300. 

reader    prefers    the    so  -  called   "  art  -  poetry  "    which 
broke  out  in   Germany,  almost  wholly  on 

Literary  poetry.  ,       .  .  ,  .    ,  .    ,   . 

a  Irench  impulse,  but  with  astonishing 
individuality  and  colour  of  national  and  personal 
character,  towards  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century, 
to  the  folk  -  poetry,  of  which  the  greater  examples 
have  been  mentioned  hitherto,  whether  he  reverses 
the  preference,  or  whether,  in  the  mood  of  the  literary 
student  proper,  he  declines  to  regard  either  with 
preference,  but  admires  and  delights  in  both.^  On 
either  side  there  are  compensations  for  whatever  loss 
may  be  urged  by  the  partisans  of  the  other.  It  may 
or  may  not  be  an  accident  that  the  sons  of  adoption 
are  more  numerous  than  the  sons  of  the  house  :  it  is 
not  so  certain  tliat  the  one  group  is  to  be  on  any  true 
reckoning  preferred  to  the  other. 

In  any  case  the  German  literary  poetry  (a  much 
better  phrase  than  hunst  - poesie ,  for  there  is  plenty 
Its  four  chief  of  art  Oil  botli  sidcs)  forms  a  part,  and, 
tnasters.  i\Q;yit  to  its  Frcuch  origiuals,  perhaps  the 
greatest  part,  of  that  extraordinary  and  almost 
unparalleled  blossoming  of  literature  which,  starting 
from  France,  overspread  the  whole  of  Europe  at  one 
time,  the  last  half  or  quarter  of  the  twelfth  century, 
and  the  first  quarter  of  the  thirteenth.  Four  names, 
great  and  all  but  of  the  greatest — Hartmami  von  Aue, 
Gottfried  of  Strasburg,  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  and 
Walther  von   der  Vogelweide — illustrate  it  as  far  as 

^  The  subjects  of  the  last  paragraph  form,  it  will  be  seen,  a  link 
between  the  two,  being  at  least  probably  based  on  German  traditions, 
but  influenced  in  form  by  French. 


MIDDLE   HIGH   GERMAN   POETRY.  239 

Germany  is  concerned.  Another,  somewhat  earlier 
than  these,  and  in  a  way  their  master,  Eilhart 
von  Oberge,  is  supposed  or  rather  known  to  have 
dealt  with  the  Tristram  story  before  Gottfried ;  and 
Heinrich  von  Veldeke,  in  handling  the  ^neid,  com- 
municated to  Germany  something  of  a  directly  clas- 
sical, though  more  of  a  French,  touch.  AVe  have 
spoken  of  the  still  earlier  work  of  Conrad  and 
Lamprecht,  while  in  passing  must  be  mentioned 
other  things  fashioned  after  French  patterns,  such 
as  the  Kaiscrchronih,  which  is  attributed  to  Bavarian 
hands.  The  period  of  flourishing  of  the  literary 
poetry  proper  was  not  long — 1150  to  1350  would 
cover  very  nearly  the  whole  of  it,  and  here,  as  else- 
where, it  is  impossible  to  deal  with  every  individual, 
or  even  with  the  majority  of  individuals.  But  some 
remarks  in  detail,  though  not  in  great  detail,  on  the 
four  principals  above  referred  to.  will  put  the  German 
literary  "  state  "  of  the  time  almost  as  well  as  if  all 
the  battalions  and  squadrons  were  enumerated. 
Hartmann,  Gottfried,  and  Wolfram,  even  in  what 
we  have  of  them,  lyric  writers  in  part,  were  chiefly 
writers  of  epic  or  romance ;  Walther  is  a  song-writer 
pure  and  simple. 

One   thing   may   be   said  with  great    certainty  of 

the  division  of  literature  to  which  we  have    come, 

that  none  shows  more  clearly  the  natural 

Excellence,  both  .,         n.i  i  i  i  i    -^  c 

natural  and  aptitudc  01  the  pcoplc  who  produced  it  tor 
acqvircd,of      poetrv.     It  is  a  familiar  observation  from 

German  verse,      '-  •' 

beginners  in  German  wlio  have  any  literary 
taste,  that  German  poetry   reads  naturally,   German 


24:0  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

prose  does  not.  In  verse  the  German  disencumbers 
himself  of  that  gruesome  clumsiness  which  almost 
always  besets  him  in  the  art  he  learnt  so  late,  and 
never  learnt  to  any  perfection.  To  "  say  "  is  a  trouble 
to  him,  a  trouble  too  often  unconquerable ;  to  sing  is 
easy  enough.  And  this  truth,  true  of  all  centuries 
of  German  literature,  is  never  truer  than  here. 
Translated  or  adapted  verse  is  not  usually  the  most 
cheerful  department  of  poetry.  The  English  romances, 
translated  or  adapted  from  the  French,  at  times  on 
the  whole  later  than  these,  have  been  unduly  abused ; 
but  they  are  certainly  not  the  portion  of  the  litera- 
ture of  his  country  on  which  an  Englishman  would 
most  pride  himself.  Even  the  home-grown  and,  as 
I  would  fain  believe,  home-made  legend  of  Arthur, 
had  to  wait  till  the  fifteenth  century  before  it  met, 
and  then  in  prose,  a  worthy  master  in  English. 

But  the  German  adapters  of  French  at  the  meeting 
of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  are  persons  of 
Originality  of  Very  different  calibre  from  the  translators 
its  adaptation,  ^f  Alexander  and  the  other  English-French 
romances,  even  from  those  who  with  far  more  native 
talent  Englished  Havelok  and  Horn.  If  I  have 
spoken  harshly  of  German  admiration  of  Kudrun,  I 
am  glad  to  make  this  amends  and  to  admit  that 
Gottfried's  Tri&tan  is  by  far  the  best  of  all  the  nu- 
merous rehandlings  of  the  story  which  have  come 
down  to  us.  If  we  must  rest  Hartmann  von  Aue's 
chief  claims  on  the  two  Bilchlein,  on  the  songs,  and 
on  the  delightful  Armer  Heinrich,  yet  his  Iivcin  and 
his  Erec  can  hold  their  own  even  with  two  of  the 


MIDDLE    HIGH    GERMAN    POETRY.  241 

freshest  and  most  varied  of  Chrestien's  original  poems. 
No  one  except  the  merest  pedant  of  originality  would 
hesitate  to  put  Parzival  above  Percevale  le  Gallois, 
though  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  may  be  thought 
to  have  been  less  fortunate  with  Willehalm.  And 
though  in  the  lyric,  the  debt  due  to  both  troubadour 
and  trouvhre  is  unmistakable,  it  is  equally  unmistak- 
able what  mighty  usury  the  minnesingers  have  paid 
for  the  capital  they  borrowed.  The  skill  both  of 
Northern  and  Southern  Frenchmen  is  seldom  to  seek 
in  lyric  :  we  cannot  give  them  too  high  praise  as 
fashioners  of  instruments  for  other  men  to  use.  The 
cheerful  bird-voice  of  the  trouvdrc,  the  half  artificial 
but  not  wholly  insincere  intensity  of  his  brethren  of 
the  langue  (Toe,  will  never  miss  their  meed.  But  for 
real  "  cry,"  for  the  diviner  elements  of  lyric,  we  some- 
how wait  till  we  hear  it  in 

"  Under  cler  linden 

An  der  heide, 
da  nnser  zweier  bette  was, 
da  muget  ir  vinden 

schone  beide 
gebrochen  bluomen  nnde  gras. 

Vor  dem  walde  in  einem  tal, 
tandaradei ! 

schone  sane  diu  nahtegal."  ^ 

At  last  we  are  free  from  the  tyranny  of  the  iambic, 
and  have  variety  beyond  the  comparative  freedom  of 
the  trochee.  The  blessed  liberty  of  trisyllabic  feet 
not  merely  comes  like  music,  but  is  for  the  first  time 
complete  music,  to  the  ear. 

^  Walther's  ninth  Lied,  opening  stanza. 

Q 


242  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

Historians  arrange  the  process  of  Lorrowing  from 

the  French   and  adjusting  prosody   to  the  loans  in, 

rou<^hly  speaking;,  three  stages.     The  first 

The  pioneers.  o      J        r  O'  O 

Heinrichvon  of  thesc  is  represented  by  Lamprecht's 
Alexander  and  Conrad's  Roland ;  while  the 
second  and  far  more  important  has  for  chief  exponents 
an  anonymous  rendering  of  the  universally  popular 
Flore  et  Blancliejieur^  the  capital  example  of  a  pure 
love-story  in  which  love  triumphs  over  luck  and  fate, 
and  differences  of  nation  and  religion.  Of  this  only 
fragments  survive,  and  the  before  -  mentioned  first 
German  version  of  the  Tristan  story  by  Eilhart  von 
Oberge  exists  only  in  a  much  altered  form  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  But  both,  as  well  as  the  work  in 
lyric  and  narrative  of  Heinrich  von  Veldeke,  date 
well  within  the  twelfth  century,  and  the  earliest  of 
them  may  not  be  much  younger  than  its  middle.  It 
was  Heinrich  who  seems  to  have  been  the  chief  master 
in  form  of  the  greater  poets  mentioned  above,  and  now 
to  be  noticed  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  us.  We  do  not 
know,  personally  speaking,  very  much  about  them, 
though  the  endless  industry  of  their  commentators, 
availing  itself  of  not  a  little  sheer  guesswork,  has 
succeeded  in  spinning  various  stories  concerning  them ; 
and  the  curious  incident  of  the  Wartburg  -  hrieg  or 
minstrels'  tournament,  though  reported  much  later, 
very  likely  has  sound  traditional  foundations.  But 
it  is  not  very  necessary  to  believe,  for  instance,  that 
Gottfried  von  Strasburg  makes  an  attack  on  Wolfram 
von  Eschenbach.     And  generally  the  best  attitude  is 

^  Found  in  every  language,  but  originally  French. 


MIDDLE   HIGH   GEKMAN    POETRY.  243 

that  of  an  editor  of  the  said  Gottfried  (who  himself 
rather  fails  to  reck  his  own  salutary  rede  by  proceed- 
ing to  redistribute  the  ordinary  attribution  of  poems), 
"  Ich  bekenne  dass  ich  in  diesen  Dingen  skeptischcr 
Natur  bin." 

If,  however,  even  Gottfried's  own  authorship  of  the 
Tristan  ^  is  rather  a  matter  of  extremely  probable  infer- 
Gottfricd  of  Gucc  than  of  certain  knowledge,  and  if  the 
stnisburg.  Hves  of  most  of  the  poets  are  very  little 
known,  the  poems  themselves  are  fortunately  there,  for 
every  one  who  chooses  to  read  and  to  form  his  own 
opinion  about  them.  The  palm  for  work  of  magnitude 
in  every  sense  belongs  to  Gottfried's  Tristan  and  to 
Wolfram's  Farzival,  and  as  it  happens — as  it  so  often 
happens — the  contrasts  of  these  two  works  are  of  the 
most  striking  and  interesting  character.  The  Tristram 
story,  as  has  been  said  above,  despite  its  extreme 
popularity  and  the  abiding  hold  which  it  has  exer- 
cised on  poets  as  well  as  readers,  is  on  the  whole  of  a 
lower  and  coarser  kind  than  the  great  central  Arthurian 
legend.  The  philtre,  though  it  supplies  a  certain  ex- 
cuse for  the  lovers,  degrades  the  purely  romantic 
character  of  their  affection  in  more  than  compen- 
sating measure ;  the  conduct  of  Iseult  to  the  faithful 
Brengwain,  if  by  no  means  unfeminine.  is  exceedingly 
detestable;  and  if  Tristram  was  nearly  as  good  a 
knight  as  Lancelot,  he  certainly  was  not  nearly  so 
good  a  lover  or  nearly  so  thorough  a  gentleman.  But 
the  attractions  of  the  story  were  and  are  all  the 
greater,  we  need  not  say  to  the  vulgar,  but  to  the 

^  Ed.  Bechstein.     3d  ed.,  2  vols.     Leipzig,  1891. 


244  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

general ;  and  Gottfried  seems  to  have  been  quite  ad- 
mirably and  almost  ideally  qualified  to  treat  them. 
His  French  original  is  not  known,  for  the  earlier 
French  versions  of  this  story  have  perished  or  only 
survive  in  fragments ;  and  there  is  an  almost  inextri- 
cable coil  about  the  "  Thomas "  to  whom  Gottfried 
refers,  and  who  used  to  be  (though  this  has  now  been 
given  up)  identified  with  no  less  a  person  than  Thomas 
the  Ehymer,  Thomas  of  Erceldoune  himself.  But  we 
can  see,  as  clearly  as  if  we  had  parallel  texts,  that 
Gottfried  treated  his  original  as  all  real  and  sensible 
poets  do  treat  their  originals — that  is  to  say,  that  he 
took  what  he  wanted,  added  what  he  chose,  and  dis- 
carded what  he  pleased.  In  his  handling  of  the  French 
octosyllable  he  at  once  displays  that  impatience  of  the 
rigidly  syllabic  system  of  prosody  which  Teutonic 
poetry  of  the  best  kind  always  shows  sooner  or  later. 
At  first  the  octosyllables  are  arranged  in  a  curious  and 
not  particularly  charming  scheme  of  quatrains,  not 
only  mono-rhymed,  but  so  arranged  that  the  very  same 
words  occur  in  alternate  places,  or  in  1,  4,  and  2,  3 — 
"Man,"  "kan,"  "man,"  "kan";  "list,"  "  ist,"  "  ist," 
"list," — the  latter  order  being  in  this  interesting, 
that  it  suggests  the  very  first  appearance  of  the  In 
Memoriam  stanza.  But  Gottfried  was  mucli  too  sen- 
sible a  poet  to  think  of  writing  a  long  poem — his, 
which  is  not  complete,  and  was  continued  by  Ulrich 
von  Turheim,  by  an  Anon,  and  by  Heinrich  von 
Freiberg,  extends  to  some  twenty  thousand  lines — in 
such  a  measure  as  this.  He  soon  takes  up  the  simple 
octosyllabic  couplet,  treated,  however,  with  great  free- 


MIDDLE    HIGH    GERMAX   POETRY.  245 

dom.  The  rhymes  are  sometimes  single,  sometimes 
double,  occasionally  even  triple.  The  syllables  con- 
stantly sink  to  seven,  and  sometimes  even  to  six,  or 
extend  themselves,  by  the  admission  of  trisyllabic  feet, 
to  ten,  eleven,  if  not  even  twelve.  Thus,  once  more, 
the  famous  "  Christabel "  metre  is  here,  not  indeed  in 
the  extremely  mobile  completeness  which  Coleridge 
gave  it,  nor  even  with  quite  such  an  indulgence  in 
anapeests  as  Spenser  allows  himself  in  "  The  Oak  and 
the  Brere,"  but  to  all  intents  and  purposes  fully  con- 
stituted, if  not  fully  developed. 

And  Gottfried  is  quite  equal  to  his  form.  One 
may  feel,  indeed,  and  it  is  not  unpleasant  to  feel, 
that  evidence  of  the  "young  hand,"  which  consists 
in  digressions  from  the  text,  of  excursus  and  ambages, 
essays,  as  it  were,  to  show,  "  Here  I  am  speaking  quite 
for  myself,  and  not  merely  reading  off  book."  But 
he  tells  the  story  very  well — compare,  for  instance, 
the  crucial  point  of  the  substitution  of  Brengwain 
for  Iseult  in  him  and  in  the  English  Sir  Tristrcm, 
or  the  cliarming  account  of  the  "  Minnegrotte  "  in  the 
twenty-seventh  song,  with  the  many  other  things  of 
the  kind  in  French,  English,  and  German  of  the 
time.  Also  he  has  constant  little  bursts,  little 
spurts,  of  half-lyrical  cry,  which  lighten  the  narra- 
tive charmingly. 

"  Diu  wise  Isot,  dm  schoene  Isot, 
Dili  liuhtet  alse  der  morgenrot," 

is  the  very  thing  the  want  of  which  mars  the  pleas- 
antly flowing  but  somewhat  featureless  octosyllables 


24G  EUEOPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1:300. 

of  his  French  models.  In  the  famous  passage  ^  where 
he  has  been  thought  to  reflect  on  Wolfram,  he  cer- 
tainly praises  other  poets  without  stint,  and  shows 
himself  a  generous  as  well  as  a  judicious  critic.  How 
Hartmann  von  Aue  hits  the  meaning  of  a  story  !  how 
loud  and  clear  rings  the  crystal  of  his  words !  Did 
not  Heinrich  von  Veldeke  "  imp  the  first  shoot  on 
Teutish  tongues "  (graft  French  on  German  poetry)  ? 
With  what  a  lofty  voice  does  the  nightingale  of  the 
Bird  -  Meadow  (Walther)  warble  across  the  heath ! 
Nor  is  it  unpleasant  to  come  shortly  afterwards  to  our 
old  friends  Apollo  and  the  Camoenae,  the  nine  "  Sirens 
of  the  ears  " — a  slightly  mixed  reminiscence,  but  char- 
acteristic of  the  union  of  classical  and  romantic  material 
which  communicates  to  the  Middle  Ages  so  much  of 
their  charm.  Indeed  nowhere  in  this  Pisgah  sight  of 
literature  would  it  be  pleasanter  to  come  down  and 
expatiate  on  the  particular  subject  than  in  the  case 
of  these  Middle  High  German  poets. 

Hartmann  von  Aue,^  the  subject  of  Gottfried's 
highest  eulogy,  has  left  a  bulkier — at  least  a  more 
Hartmann  Varied — poctical  baggage  than  his  eulogist, 
von  Aue.  whose  owu  Icgacy  is  not  small.  It  will 
depend  a  good  deal  on  individual  taste  whether  his 
actual  poetical  powers  be  put  lower  or  higher.  We 
have  of  his,  or  attributed  to  him,  two  long  romances 
of  adventure,  translations  or  adaptations  of  the  Chev- 

^  Tristan,  8th  soug,  1.  4619  and  onwards.  The  crucial  passage  is 
a  sharp  rebuke  of  "  finders  [vindcere,  trouvercs]  of  wild  tales,"  or  one 
particular  such  who  plays  tricks  on  his  readers  and  utters  unin- 
telligible things.     It  may  be  Wolfram  :  it  also  may  not  be. 

2  Ed.  Bech.     3d.  ed.,  3  vols.     Leipzig,  1893. 


MIDDLE   HIGH   GEEMAN   POETRY.  247 

alier  au  Lyon  and  the  Errc  ct  Enidc  of  Chrestien  cle 
Troves ;  a  certain  number  of  songs,  partly  amatory, 
partly  religious,  two  curious  pieces  entitled  Die  Klngc 
and  Biichlein,  a  verse -rendering  of  a  subject  which 
was  much  a  favourite,  the  involuntary  incest  and 
atonement  of  St  Gregory  of  the  Eock;  and  lastly, 
his  masterpiece,  Der  Arme  Heinrich. 

In  considering  the  two  Arthurian  adventure-stories, 

it  is  fair  to  remember  that  in  Gottfried's  case  we  have 

,    ^       not  the  original,  while  in  Hartmann's  we 

Brec  der  Wan-  ^^ 

deraere  and  have,  and  that  the  originals  here  are  two  of 
the  very  best  examples  in  their  kind  and 
language.  That  Hartmann  did  not  escape  the  beset- 
ting sin  of  all  adapters,  and  especially  of  all  mediaeval 
adapters,  the  sin  of  amplification  and  watering  down, 
is  quite  true.  It  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  while 
Chrestien  contents  himself  in  each  case  with  less  than 
seven  thousand  lines  (and  he  has  never  been  thought 
a  laconic  poet),  Hartmann  extends  both  in  practically 
the  same  measure  (though  the  licences  above  referred 
to  make  the  lines  often  much  shorter  than  the 
French,  while  Hartmann  himself  does  not  often  make 
them  much  longer) — in  the  one  case  to  over  eight 
thousand  lines,  in  the  other  to  over  ten.  But  it 
would  not  be  fair  to  deny  very  considerable  merits 
to  his  versions.  They  are  readable  with  interest  after 
the  French  itself :  and  in  the  case  of  Erec  after  the 
Mabinogion  and  the  Idylls  of  the  King  also.  It  cannot 
be  said,  however,  that  in  either  piece  the  poet  handles 
his  subject  with  the.  same  appearance  of  mastery  whicli 
belongs  to  Gottfried :  and  this  is  not  to  be  altogether 


248  EUKOPEAN   LITEKATURE,    1100-1300. 

accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  the  stories  themselves 
are  less  interesting.  Or  rather  it  may  be  said  that 
his  selection  of  these  stories,  good  as  they  are  in 
their  way,  when  greater  were  at  his  option,  somewhat 
"  speaks  him  "  as  a  poet. 

The  next  or  lyrical  division  shows  Hartmann  more 
favourably,  though  still  not  exactly  as  a  great  poet. 
Lyrics.  The  "  Frauenminne,"  or  profane  division, 
of  these  has  something  of  the  artificial  character  which 
used  very  unjustly  to  be  charged  against  the  whole 
love-poetry  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  which  certainly 
does  affect  some  of  it.  There  is  nowhere  the  "  cry " 
that  we  find  in  the  best  of  Gottfried's  "  nightingales  " 
— the  lyric  poets  as  opposed  to  the  epic.  He  does  not 
seem  to  have  much  command  of  trisyllabic  measures, 
and  is  perhaps  happiest  in  the  above  -  mentioned 
mono-rhymed  quatrain,  apparently  a  favourite  measure 
then,  which  he  uses  sometimes  in  octosyllables,  but 
often  also  in  decasyllabics.  I  do  not  know,  and  it 
would  probably  be  difficult  to  say,  what  was  the  first 
appearance  of  the  decasyllabic,  which  in  German,  as 
in  English,  was  to  become  on  the  whole  the  staple 
measure  of  non-lyrical  poetry  and  the  not  infrequent 
medium  of  lyrical.  But  this  must  be  fairly  early,  and 
certainly  is  a  good  example.  The  "  Gottesminne,"  or, 
as  our  own  old  word  has  it,  the  "  Divine  "  Poems,  are 
very  much  better.  Hartmann  himself  was  a  crusader, 
and  there  is  nothing  merely  conventional  in  his  few 
lays  from  the  crusading  and  pilgrim  standpoint.  In- 
deed the  very  first  words,  expressing  his  determina- 
tion after  his  lord's  death  to  leave  the  world  to  itself, 


MIDDLE   HIGH    GERMAN   POETRY,  249 

have  a  better  ring  tlian  anything  in  his  love-poetry ; 
and  the  echo  is  kept  up  in  such  simple  but  true 
sayings  as  this  about  "Christ's  flowers"  (the  badge  of 
the  cross): — 

"  Min  froude  wart  nie  sorgelos 
Unz  an  die  tage 
Daz  icli  mir  Kiystes  bluomen  kos 
Die  icli  hie  trage." 

Tlie  two  curious  booklets  or  complaints  (for  each 

bore  the  title  of  Bilchlcin  in  its  own  day,  and  each  is  a 

27ie  Klage)  and  the  Gregorius  touch  the  lyric  on 

"hookicts."    Qj^Q  g^(jg  g^j^^j  ^YiQ  adventure  poems  on  the 

other.  Gregorius,  indeed,  is  simply  a  roman  cl'avcn- 
tures  of  pious  tendency ;  and  there  cannot  be  very 
much  doubt  that  it  had  a  French  original.  It  extends 
to  some  four  thousand  lines,  and  does  not  show  any 
poetical  characteristics  very  different  from  those  of 
Urec  and  Iwein,  though  they  are  applied  to  different 
matter.  In  size  the  two  "  booklets  "  stand  in  a  curi- 
ously diminishing  ratio  to  Erec  with  its  ten  thousand 
verses,  Iivein  with  its  eight,  and  Gregorius  with  its 
four ;  for  Die  Klctge  has  a  little  under  two  thousand, 
and  the  Bilchlein  proper  a  little  under  one.  Die  Klage 
is  of  varied  structure,  beginning  with  octosyllables,  of 
which  the  first — 

"  Minne  waltet  grozer  kraft " — • 

has  a  pleasant  trochaic  cadence :  continuing  after  some 
sixteen  hundred  lines  (if  indeed  it  be  a  continuation 
and  not  a  new  poem)  in  curious  long  laisses,  rather  than 
stanzas,  of  eights  and  sevens  rhymed  on  one  continu- 


250  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

ous  pair  of  single  and  double  rhymes,  ci;!  unde:  ant 
ende,  &c.  The  BUclilein  proper  is  all  couplets,  and 
ends  less  deplorably  than  its  beginning — 

''Owe,  Owe,  unde  owe  !  " — 

might  suggest.  It  is,  however,  more  serious  than  the 
Klage,  which  is  really  a  d6lat  (as  the  technical  term  in 
French  poetry  then  went)  between  Body  and  Soul, 
and  of  no  unusual  kind. 

Fortunately  for  Hartmann,  he  has  left  another 
work,  Dcr  Arme  Hcinrich,  which  is  thought  to  be  his 
Der  Arme  l^st,  and  is  Certainly  his  most  perfect.  It 
Heinrich.  |g  ^Imost  a  pity  that  Longfellow,  in  his 
adaptation  of  it,  did  not  stick  closer  to  the  original ; 
for  pleasant  as  The  Golden  Legend  is,  it  is  more  of  a 
pastiche  and  mosaic  than  Der  Arme  Heinrich,  one 
of  the  simplest,  most  direct,  and  most  touching  of 
mediaeval  poems.  Heinrich  (also  Von  Aue)  is  a  noble 
who,  like  Sir  Isumbras  and  other  examples  of  the  no 
less  pious  than  wise  belief  of  the  Middle  Ages  in 
Nemesis,  forgets  God  and  is  stricken  for  his  sin  with 
leprosy.  He  can  only  recover  by  the  blood  of  a  pure 
maiden  ;  and  half  despairing  of,  half  revolting  at,  such 
a  cure^  he  gives  away  all  his  property  but  one  farm, 
and  lives  there  in  misery.  The  farmer's  daughter 
learns  his  doom  and  devotes  herself.  Heinrich  refuses 
for  a  time,  but  yields :  and  they  travel  to  Salerno, 
where,  as  the  sacrifice  is  on  the  point  of  completion, 
Heinrich  sees  the  maiden's  face  through  a  crack  in 
the  doctor's  room-wall,  feels  the  impossibility  of  allow- 
ing her  to  die,  and  stops  the  crime.     He  is  rewarded 


MIDDLE   HIGH    GERMAN   POETRY.  251 

by  a  cure  as  miraculous  as  was  his  harm  ;  recovers  his 
fortune,  and  marries  the  maiden.  A  later  termination 
separates  them  again;  but  this  is  simply  the  folly  and 
bad  taste  of  a  certain,  and  only  a  certain,  perversion 
of  mediaeval  sentiment,  the  crowning  instance  of  which 
is  found  in  Guy  of  Warioiclc.  Ilartmann  himself  was 
no  such  simpleton ;  and  (with  only  an  infinitesimal 
change  of  a  famous  sentence)  we  may  be  sure  that  as 
he  was  a  good  lover  so  he  made  a  good  end  to  his 
story 

Although  German  writers  may  sometimes  have  mis- 
praised  or  overpraised  their  greatest  mediaeval  poet,  it 
Wolfram  von  ^^  Certain  that  we  find  in  Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach.  Eschcnbach  ^  qualities  which,  in  the  thou- 
sand years  between  the  Fall  and  the  Eenaissance  of 
classical  literature,  can  be  found  to  anything  like  the 
same  extent  in  only  two  known  writers,  the  Italian 
Dante  and  the  Englishman  Langland ;  while  if  he  is 
immensely  Dante's  inferior  in  poetical  quality,  he  has 
at  least  one  gift,  humour,  which  Dante  had  not,  and  is 
far  Langland's  superior  in  variety  and  in  romantic 
charm.  He  displays,  moreover,  a  really  curious  con- 
trast to  the  poets  already  mentioned,  and  to  most  of 
the  far  greater  number  not  mentioned.  It  is  in  Wolf- 
ram first  that  we  come  across,  in  anything  like  notice- 
able measure,  that  mastery  of  poetical  mysticism  which 
is  the  pride,  and  justly  the  pride,  of  the  German  Muse. 
Gottfried  and  Hartmann  are  rather  practical  folk. 
Hartmann  has  at  best  a  pious  and  Gottfried  a  profane 

^  Complete  works.     Ed.  Lachmann.     Berlin,  1838.      Parzival  und 
Titurcl.     2  vols.     Ed.  Bartsch.     Leipzig,  1870, 


252  .  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

fancy ;  of  the  liigher  qualities  of  imagination  there  is 
little  or  nothing  in  them ;  and  not  much  in  the  vast 
crowd  of  the  Minnesingers,  from  the  chief  "  nightin- 
gale "  Walther  downwards.  Wolfram,  himself  a 
Minnesinger  (indeed  the  term  is  loosely  applied  to  all 
the  poets  of  this  time,  and  may  be  very  properly 
claimed  by  Gottfried  and  Hartmann,  thovigh  the 
former  has  left  no  lyric),  has  left  us  few  but  very 
remarkable  auhadcs,  in  which  the  commonplace  of  the 
morning-song,  with  its  disturbance  of  lovers,  is  treated 
in  no  commonplace  way.  But  his  fame  rests  on  the 
three  epics,  Parzival,  Titurel,  and  Willehalm.  It  is 
practically  agreed  that  Parzival  represents  the 
flourishing  time,  and  Willehahn  the  evening,  of  his 
work ;  there  is  more  critical  disagreement  about  the 
time  of  composition  of  Titurel,  which, 
though  it  was  afterwards  continued  and 
worked  up  by  another  hand,  exists  only  in  fragments, 
and  presents  a  very  curious  difference  of  structure  as 
compared  both  with  Parzival  (with  which  in  subject  it 
is  connected)  and  with  Willehalm.  Both  these  are  in 
octosyllables :  Titurel  is  in  a  singular  and  far  from 
felicitous  stanza,  which  stands  to  that  of  Kudrun 
much  as  the  Kttdrun  stanza  does  to  that  of  the  Nibel- 
ungen.  Here  there  are  none  but  double  rhymes ;  and 
not  merely  the  second  half  of  the  fourth,  but  the  second 
half  of  the  second  line  "  tails  out "  in  the  manner 
formerly  described.  The  consequence  is,  that  while 
in  Kudrun  it  is,  as  was  remarked,  difficult  to  get  any 
swing  on  the  metre,  in  Titurel  it  is  simply  impossible ; 
and   it  has  been  thought  without  any  improbability 


MIDDLE   HIGH    GEEMAN    POETRY.  253 

that  the  fragmentary  condition  of  the  piece  is  due  to 
the  poet's  reasonable  discontent  with  the  shackles  he 
had  imposed  on  himself.  The  substance  is  good 
enough,  and  would  have  made  an  interesting  chapter 
in  the  vast  working  up  of  the  Percevale  story  which 
Wolfram  probably  had  in  his  mind. 

Willehalm,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  only  in  form 

but  in  substance  a  following  of  the  French,  and  of 

no  less  a  French  poem  than  the  Battle  of 

Willehalm.  i   •    i       i 

Aliscans,  which  has  been  so  fully  dealt 
with  above.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  advocates  of 
the  two,  and  see  how  German  critics  usually  extol 
the  improvements  made  by  the  German  poet,  while 
the  French  sneer  at  his  preachments  and  waterings- 
down.  But  we  need  say  nothing  more  than  that  if 
Wolfram's  fame  rested  on  Willehalm,  the  notice  of 
him  here  would  probably  not  go  beyond  a  couple  of 
lines. 

Farzival,  however,  is   a  very  different  matter.     It 
has  of  late  years  received  adventitious  note  from  the 

fact  of  its  selection  by  Wagner  as  a  libretto ; 

but  it  did  not  need  this,  and  it  was  the 
admiration  of  every  fit  reader  long  before  the  opera 
appeared.  The  Percevale  story,  it  may  be  remembered, 
lies  somewhat  outside  of  the  main  Arthurian  legend, 
which,  however,  had  hardly  taken  full  form  when 
Wolfram  wrote.  It  has  been  strongly  fought  for  by 
the  Celticists  as  traceable  originally  to  the  Welsh 
legend  of  Peredur ;  but  it  is  to  be  observed  that 
neither  in  this  form  nor  in  the  EngHsh  version  (which 
figures  among  the  Thornton  Eomances)  does  the  Graal 


254  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

make  any  figure.  In  the  huge  poem,  made  huger  by 
continuators,  of  Ghrestien  de  Troyes,  Percival  becomes 
a  Graal-seeker ;  and  on  the  whole  it  would  appear 
that,  as  observed  before,  he  in  point  of  time  antici- 
pates Galahad  and  the  story  which  works  the  Graal 
thoroughly  into  the  main  Arthurian  tale.  According 
to  Wolfram  (but  this  is  a  romantic  commonplace), 
Ghrestien  was  culpably  remiss  in  telling  the  story, 
and  his  deficiencies  had  to  be  made  up  by  a  certain 
Provencal  named  Kyot.  Unfortunately  there  are  no 
traces  elsewhere  of  any  such  person,  or  of  any  version,, 
in  Provencal  or  otherwise,  between  Chrestien's  and 
Wolfram's.  The  two,  however,  stand  far  enough  apait. 
to  have  admitted  of  more  than  one  intermediary :  or 
rather  no  number  of  intermediaries  could  really  have 
bridged  the  chasm,  which  is  one  of  spirit  rather  than 
of  matter.  In  Perccvale  le  Gallois,  though  the  Graal 
exists,  and  though  the  adventures  are  rather  more 
on  the  outside  of  the  strictly  Arthurian  cycle  than 
usual,  we  are  still  in  close  relations  with  that  cycle, 
and  the  general  tone  and  handling  are  similar  (except 
in  so  far  as  Ghrestien  is  a  better  trotivtre  than  most) 
to  those  of  fifty  other  poems.  In  Parzival  we  are 
translated  into  another  country  altogether.  Arthur 
appears  but  seldom,  and  though  the  link  with  the 
Eound  Table  is  maintained  by  the  appearances  of 
Gawain,  who  as  often,  though  not  always,  plays 
to  Percevale  the  part  of  light  to  serious  hero,  here 
almost  only,  and  here  not  always,  are  we  in  among 
"kenned  folk."  The  Graal  mountain,  Montsalvatsch, 
is  even  more  in  fairyland  than  the  "  enchanted  towers 


MIDDLE    HIGH   GEKMAN    I'OETKY.  255 

of  Carbouek " ;  the  nuigiciau  Kliugsclior  is  a  more 
shadowy  person  far  than  Merlin. 

"Cuudrie  la  Sorziere 
Dili  iinsueze  unci  docli  din  fiere  " 

is  a  much  more  weird  personage  than  Morgana  or 
Nimue,  though  she  may  also  be  more  "  unsweet." 
Part  of  this  unfamiliar  effect  is  no  doubt  due  to  Wolf- 
ram's singular  fancy  for  mutilating  and  torturing  his 
French  names,  to  his  admixture  of  new  characters  and 
adventures,  and  especially  to  the  almost  entirely  new 
genealogy  which  he  introduces.  In  the  pedigree,  con- 
taining nearly  seventy  names,  which  will  be  found  at 
the  end  of  Bartsch's  edition,  not  a  tithe  will  be  familiar 
to  the  reader  of  the  English  and  French  romances; 
and  that  reader  will  generally  find  those  whom  he 
does  know  provided  with  new  fathers  and  mothers, 
daughters  and  wives. 

But  these  would  be  very  small  matters  if  it  were 
not  for  other  differences,  not  of  administration  but  of 
spirit.  There  may  have  been  something  too  much  of 
the  attempt  to  credit  Wolfram  with  anti-dogmatic 
views,  and  with  a  certain  Protestant  preference  of 
simple  repentance  and  amendment  to  the  performance 
of  stated  rites  and  penances.  What  is  unmistakable 
is  the  way  in  which  he  lifts  the  story,  now  by  phrase, 
now  by  verse  effect,  now  by  the  indefinable  magic 
of  sheer  poetic  liandling,  out  of  ordinary  ways  into 
ways  that  are  not  ordinary.  There  may  perhaps  be 
allowed  to  be  a  certain  want  of  "  arcliitectonic "  in 
him.     He  has  not  made  of  Parzival  and  Condwiramurs, 


256  EUKOPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

of  Gawain  and  Orgeluse,  anything  like  the  complete 
drama  which  we  find  (brought  out  by  the  genius  of 
Malory,  but  existing  before)  in  the  French-English 
Arthurian  legend.  But  any  one  who  knows  the 
origins  of  that  legend  from  Erec  et  J^nide  to  Dnrmart 
Ic  Gallois,  and  from  the  Chevalier  aio  Lyon  to  the 
Chevalier  as  Devx  EsjJ^es,  must  recognise  in  him  some- 
thing higher  and  larger  than  can  be  found  in  any  of 
them,  as  well  as  something  more  human,  if  even  in 
the  best  sense  more  fairy-tale  like,  than  the  earlier 
and  more  Western  legends  of  the  Graal  as  we  have 
them  in  Merlin  and  the  other  French  books.  Here 
again,  not  so  much  for  the  form  as  for  the  spirit,  we 
find  ourselves  driven  to  the  word  "great" — a  great 
word,  and  one  not  to  be  misused  as  it  so  often  is. 

Yet  it  may  be  applied  in  a  different  sense,  though 
without  hesitation,  to  our  fourth  selected  name, 
ur  7rt         7    Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,^  a  name  in 

Waltner  von  dcr  O  ' 

Vogeiweide.  itself  SO  agreeable  that  one  really  has  to 
take  care  lest  it  raise  an  undue  prejudice  in  his 
favour.  Perhaps  a  part  of  his  greatness  belongs  to 
him  as  the  chief  representative  of  a  class,  not,  as  in 
Wolfram's  case,  because  of  individual  merit, — a  part 
also  to  his  excellence  of  form,  which  is  a  claim  always 
regarded  with  doubt  and  dislike  by  some,  though  not 
all.  It  is  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  since  the 
present  writer  first  possessed  himself  of  and  first  read 
the  delectable  volume  in  which  Franz  Pfeiffer  opened 
his  series  of  German  Classics  of  the  Middle  Ages  with 
this  singer ;  and  every  subsequent  reading,  in  whole 

1  Ed.  Bartsch.     4th  ed.     Leipzig,  1873. 


MIDDLE  HIGH   GEKMAN   POETRY.  257 

or  in  part,  has  only  increased  his  attraction.  There 
are  some  writers  —  not  many  —  who  seem  to  defy 
criticism  by  a  sort  of  native  charm,  and  of  these  Wal- 
ther  is  one.  If  we  listen  to  some  grave  persons,  it 
is  a  childish  thing  to  write  a  poem,  as  he  does  his 
second  Lied,  in  stanzas  every  one  of  which  is  mono- 
rhymed  on  a  different  vowel.     But  as  one  reads 

"  Dili  werlt  was  gelf,  rot  unde  bin,"  ^ 

one  only  prays  for  more  such  childishness.  Is  there 
a  better  song  of  May  and  maidens  than 

"  So  dill  bliiomen  uz  dem  grase  dringent "  ? 

where  the  very  phrase  is  romance  and  nature  itself, 
and  could  never  be  indulged  in  by  a  "  classical "  poet, 
who  would  say  (very  justly),  "  flowers  grow  in  beds, 
not  grass ;  and  if  in  the  latter,  they  ought  to  be 
promptly  mown  and  rolled  down."  How  intoxicating, 
after  deserts  of  iambs,  is  the  dactylic  swell  of 

"  Wol  micli  der  stunde,  daz  ich  sie  erkande  "  ! 

how  endearing  the  drooping  cadence  of 

"  Bin  ich.  dir  iinraasre 
Des  enweiz  ich.  niht;  ich  minne  dich"  ! 


1  "  Dill  werlt  was  gelf,  rot  unde  bid, 
griien,  in  dem  walde  und  anderswS 
kleine  vogele  siingen  da. 
nd  schriet  aber  den  nebelkra. 
pfligt  s'iht  ander  varwe  ?  ja, 
s'ist  worden  bleich  und  UbergrS, : 
des  rimpfet  sich  vil  manic  bra.' 

Similar  stanzas  in  r,  t,  o,  u  follow  in  order. 

R 


258  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

how  small  the  change  which  makes  a  jewel  out  of  a 
commonplace  in 

"  Si  liat  ein  hdssen  daz  ist  rot '' ! 

But  to  go  through  the  nearly  two  hundred  pieces  of 
Walther's  lyric  would  be  here  impossible.  His  Leich, 
his  only  example  of  that  elaborate  kind,  the  most 
complicated  of  the  early  German  lyrical  forms,  is  not 
perhaps  his  happiest  effort ;  and  his  Sprilche,  a  name 
given  to  short  lyrical  pieces  in  which  the  Minne- 
singers particularly  delighted,  and  which  correspond 
pretty  nearly,  though  not  exactly,  to  the  older  sense 
of  "  epigram,"  seldom,  though  sometimes,  possess  the 
charm  of  the  Lieclcr  themselves.  But  these  Licdcr  are, 
for  probable  freedom  from  indebtedness  and  intrinsic 
exquisiteness  of  phrase  and  rhythm,  unsurpassed,  per- 
haps unequalled.  To  compare  Walther  to  Petrarch, 
and  to  talk  of  the  one  being  superior  or  inferior  to  the 
other,  is  to  betray  hopeless  insensibility  to  the  very 
rudiments  of  criticism.  They  are  absolutely  different, 
— the  one  the  embodiment  of  stately  form  and  laboured 
intellectual  effort — of  the  Classical  spirit :  the  other 
the  mouthpiece  of  the  half-inarticulate,  all-suggesting 
music  that  is  at  once  the  very  soul  and  the  very 
inseparable  garment  of  Eomance.  Some  may  like  one 
better,  others  the  other ;  the  more  fortunate  may 
enjoy  both.  But  the  greatest  of  all  gulfs  is  the  gulf 
fixed  between  the  Classical  and  the  Romantic ;  and 
few  there  are,  it  seems,  who  can  cross  it. 

Perhaps  something  may  be  expected  as  to  the  per- 
sonality of  these  poets,  a  matter  which  has  had  too 


MIDDLE    HIGH    GERMAN    POETRY.  259 

great  a  place  assigned  to  it  in  literary  liistorv. 
PersomtHfyof  Luckilj,  nnlcss  he  delights  in  unbridled 
thepoHg.  guessing,  the  historian  of  medieval  litera- 
ture is  better  entitled  to  abstain  from  it  than  any 
other.  But  something  may  perhaps  be  said  of  the 
men  whose  work  has  just  been  discussed,  for  there 
are  not  uninteresting  shades  of  difference  between 
them.  In  Germany,  as  in  France,  tlie  trouvere-jongleur 
class  existed ;  the  greater  part  of  the  poetry  of  the 
twelfth  century,  including  the  so-called  small  epics, 
Konig  Rothcr  and  the  rest,  is  attributed  to  them,  and 
they  were  the  objects  of  a  good  deal  of  patronage  from 
the  innumerable  nobles,  small  and  great,  of  the  Empire. 
On  the  other  hand,  though  some  men  of  consequence 
were  poets,  the  proportion  of  these  is,  on  the  whole, 
considerably  less  than  in  France  proper  or  in  Provence. 
The  German  noble  was  not  so  much  literary  as  a 
patron  of  literature,  like  that  Landgrave  Hermann  of 
Thuringia,  whose  court  saw  the  fabulous  or  semi- 
fabulous  "  War  of  the  Wartburg,"  with  Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach  and  Heinrich  von  Ofterdingen  as  chief 
champions.  Indeed  this  court  was  tlie  main  resort 
of  German  poets  and  minstrels  till  Saint  Elizabeth 
of  Hungary  in  the  next  generation  proved  herself  a 
rather  "  sair  sanct "  for  literature,  which  has  since 
returned  her  good  for  evil. 

To  return  to  our  four  selected  poets.  Gottfried  is 
supposed  to  have  been  neither  noble,  nor  even  directly 
attached  to  a  noble  household,  nor  a  professional  min- 
strel, but  a  burgher  of  the  town  which  gives  him  his 
name — indeed  a  caution  is  necessary  to  the  effect  that 


260  EUROPEAN   LITERATUEE,    1100-1300. 

the  von  of  these  early  designations,  like  the  dc  of  their 
French  originals,  is  by  no  means,  as  a  rule,  a  sign  of 
nobility.  Hartniann  von  Aue,  though  rather  attached 
to  than  a  member  of  the  noble  family  of  the  same 
name  from  which  he  has  taken  the  hero  of  Dcr  Arme 
Heinrich,  seems  to  have  been  admitted  to  knightly 
society,  was  a  crusader,  and  appears  to  have  been  of 
somewhat  higher  rank  than  Gottfried,  whom,  however, 
he  resembled  in  this  point,  that  both  were  evidently 
men  of  considerable  education.  We  rise  again  in 
status,  though  probably  not  in  wealth,  and  certainly 
not  in  education,  when  we  come  to  "Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach.  He  was  of  a  family  of  Northern  Bavaria 
or  Middle  Franconia ;  he  bore  (for  there  are  diversi- 
ties on  this  heraldic  point)  two  axe-blades  argent  on 
a  field  gules,  or  a  bunch  of  five  flowers  argent  spring- 
ing from  a  water-bouget  gules;  and  he  is  said  by 
witnesses  in  1608  to  have  been  described  on  his 
tombstone  as  a  knight.  But  he  was  certainly  poor, 
had  not  received  much  education,  and  he  was  attached 
in  the  usual  guest-dependant  fashion  of  the  time  to 
the  Margrave  of  Vohburg  (whose  wife,  Elizabeth  of 
Bavaria,  received  his  poetical  declarations)  and  to 
Hermann  of  Thuringia.  He  was  a  married  man,  and 
had  a  daughter. 

Lastly,  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  appears  to  have 
been  actually  a  "  working  poet,"  as  we  may  say — a 
trouvhre,  who  sang  his  own  poems  as  he  wandered 
about,  and  whose  surname  was  purely  a  decorative 
one.  He  lived,  no  doubt,  by  gifts ;  indeed,  the  his- 
torians are  proud  to  record  that  a  bishop  gave  him  a 


MIDDLE   HIGH    GERMAN   POETRY.  261 

fur  coat  precisely  on  the  12th  of  November  1203.  He 
was  probably  born  in  Austria,  lived  at  Vienna  with 
Duke  Frederic  of  Labenberg  for  some  time,  and  held 
poetical  offices  in  the  households  of  several  other 
princes,  including  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.,  who 
gave  him  an  estate  at  last.  It  should  be  said  that 
there  are  those  who  insist  that  he  also  was  of  knightly 
position,  and  was  Vogelweide  of  that  ilk,  inasmuch  as 
we  find  him  called  "  herr,"  the  supposed  mark  of  dis- 
tinction of  a  gentleman  at  the  time.  Such  questions 
are  of  importance  in  their  general  bearing  on  the 
question  of  literature  at  given  dates,  not  in  respect 
of  individual  persons.  It  must  be  evident  that  no 
word  which,  like  "  herr,"  is  susceptible  of  general  as 
well  as  technical  meanings,  can  be  absolutely  decisive 
in  such  a  case,  unless  we  find  it  in  formal  documents. 
Also,  after  Frederick's  gift  Walther  would  have  been 
entitled  to  it,  though  he  was  not  before.  At  any  rate, 
the  entirely  wandering  life,  and  the  constant  relation- 
ship to  different  protectors,  which  are  in  fact  the  only 
things  we  know  about  him,  are  more  in  accordance 
with  the  notion  of  a  professional  minstrel  than  with 
that  of  a  man  who,  like  Wolfram,  even  if  he  had  no 
estate  and  was  not  independent  of  patronage,  yet  had 
a  settled  home  of  his  own,  and  was  buried  where  he 
was  born. 

The  introduction  of  what  may  bo  called  a  represen- 
tative system  into  literary  history  has  been  here  ren- 
Tiie  Minnesing-  dcrcd  uccessary  by  tlie  fact  that  the  school- 
trs  (jmcndiy.  resemblance  so  common  in  mediaeval  writers 
is    nowhere    more   common   than   aniono-  the   Minne- 


262  EUEOPEAN   LITERATUKE,    1100-1300. 

singers,^  and  that  the  latter  are  extraordinarily  numer- 
ous, if  not  also  extraordinarily  monotonous.  One 
famous  collection  contains  specimens  of  160  poets, 
and  even  this  is  not  likely  to  include  the  whole  of 
those  who  composed  poetry  of  the  kind  before  Minne- 
song  changed  (somewhere  in  the  thirteenth  century  or 
at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth,  but  at  times  and  in 
manners  which  cannot  be  very  precisely  fixed)  into 
Meistersong.  The  chief  lyric  poets  before  Walther 
were  Heinrich  von  Veldeke,  his  contemporary  and 
namesake  Heinrich  von  Morungen,  and  Eeinmar  von 
Hagenau,  whom  Gottfried  selects  as  Walther's  imme- 
diate predecessor  in  "  nightingaleship ''' :  the  chief  later 
ones,  N'eidhart  von  Eegenthal,  famous  for  dance-songs  ; 
TannhJiuser,  whose  actual  work,  however,  is  of  a  mostly 
burlesque  character,  as  different  as  possible  from,  and 
perhaps  giving  rise  by  very  contrast  to,  the  beautiful 
and  terrible  legend  which  connects  his  name  with  the 
Venus-berg  (though  Heine  has  managed  in  his  ver- 
sion to  combine  the  two  elements) ;  Ulrich  von  Lich- 
tenstein,  half  an  apostle,  half  a  caricaturist  of  Fraucn- 
clienst  on  the  Provenc^al  model ;  and.  finally,  Frauenlob 
or  Heinrich  von  Meissen,  who  wrote  at  the  end  of  our 
period  and  the  beginning  of  the  next  for  nearly  fifty 
years,  and  may  be  said  to  be  the  link  between  Minne- 
song  and  Meistersong. 

So  also  in  the  other  departments  of  poetry,  liarbin- 
gers,  contemporaries,  and  continuators,  some  of  whom 
have  been  mentioned,  most  of  whom  it  would  be  im- 

^  The  standard  edition  oi-  corpus  of  their  work  is  that  of  Xdu  der 
Hagen,  in  three  large  vols.     Leipzig,  1838, 


MIDDLE   HIGH   GEEMAX   POETHY.  263 

})Ossible  to  mention,  group  round  the  greater  masters, 
and  as  in  France,  so  here,  the  departments  themselves 
branch  out  in  an  almost  bewildering  manner.  Ger- 
many, as  may  be  supposed,  had  its  full  share  of  that 
"  poetry  of  information  "  which  constitutes  so  large  a 
part  of  medifeval  verse,  though  here  even  more  than 
elsewhere  such  verse  is  rarely,  except  by  courtesy, 
poetry.  !b'amilies  of  later  liandlings,  both  of  the  folk 
epic  and  the  literary  romances,  exist,  such  _as  the 
Roscngarten,  the  Horny  Sicfjfried,  and  the  story  of 
Wolfdietrich  in  the  one  class  ;  Wigalois  and  WigaviiLr, 
and  a  whole  menagerie  of  poems  deriving  from  the 
Chevalier  au  Lyon,  on  the  other.  With  the  general 
growth,  half  epidemic,  half  directly  borrowed  from 
France,  of  abstraction  and  allegory  {vide  next  chapter), 
Satire  made  its  way,  and  historians  generally  dwell 
on  the  "  Frau  Welt "  of  Konrad  von  Wurzburg  in  the 
middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  in  which  Wirent 
von  Grafenburg  (a  well-known  poet  among  the  literary 
school,  the  author  of  Wigcdois)  is  brought  face  to  face 
with  an  incarnation  of  the  World  and  its  vanity. 
Volumes  on  volumes  of  moral  poetry  date  from  the 
thirteenth  century,  and  cidminate  in  the  somewhat 
well-known  Renner  ^  of  Hugo  von  Trimberg,  dating 
from  the  very  last  year  of  our  period :  perhaps  the 
most  noteworthy  is  the  Reschridenhcit  of  Freidank,  a 

^  On  this  see  the  last  passage,  ^cept  the  conclusion  (ni  Rcijnavd  the 
Fox,  of  Carlyle's  Essay  on  "  Early  German  Literature  "  noted  above. 
Of  the  great  romances,  as  distinguished  from  the  Nibclurif/en,  Carlj'le 
did  not  know  much,  and  he  was  not  quite  in  sympathy  either  with 
their  writers  or  with  the  Minnesingers  jiroper.  But  the  life-philos- 
opher of  Reynard  and  the  Renner  attracted  him. 


264  EUKOPEAN    LITEUATUKE,    1100-1300. 

crusader  trouverc  who  accompanied  Frederick  II.  to 
the  East.  But  in  all  this  Germany  is  only  following 
the  general  habit  of  the  age,  and  to  a  great  extent 
copying  directly.  Even  in  those  greater  writers  who 
have  been  here  noticed  there  is,  as  we  have  seen,  not 
a  little  imitation ;  but  the  national  and  individual 
peculiarities  more  than  excuse  this.  The  national 
epics,  with  the  Nihclungenlicd  at  their  head,  the 
Arthurian  stories  transformed,  of  which  in  different 
ways  Tristan  and  Fm-zival,  but  especially  the  latter, 
are  the  chief,  and  the  Minnesong, — these  are  the  great 
contributions  of  Germany  during  the  period,  and  they 
are  great  indeed. 


265 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  '  fox/  the  *  KOSE,'  AND  THE  MINOR 
CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  FRANCE. 

THE    I'KEDOMINANCE    OF    FRA:SCE — THE    RISE    OF    ALLEGORY LYRIC THE 

"romance"   and  the   "  PASTOURELLE  " THE  "  FABLIAUX  " THEIR 

ORIGIN THEIR    LICENCE THEIR    WIT — DEFINITION   AND  SUBJECTS — 

EFFECT    OF    THE    "  FABLIAUX "    ON   LANGUAGE — AND    ON    NARRATH'E 

—  CONDITIONS  OF  "  FABLIAU  "- WRITING  —  THE  APPEARANCE  OF 
IRONY — FABLES    PROPER — '  REYNARD    THE    FOX  ' — ORDER    OP    TEXTS 

—  PLACE  OF  ORIGIN  —  THE  FRENCH  FORM  —  ITS  COMPLICATIONS — 
UNITY  OP  SPIRIT — THE  RISE  OP  ALLEGORY — THE  SATIRE  OF  '  RENART  ' 
— THE    FOX    HIMSELF — HIS    CIRCLE — THE    BURIAL    OF    RENART — THE 

'  ROMANCE     OP    THE     ROSE ' WILLIAM     OF     LORRIS     AND     JEAN     DE 

MEUNG — THE   FIRST   PART — ITS   CAPITAL   VALUE — THE    ROSE-GARDEN 

—  "danger" — "reason"  —  "shame"     and     "scandal" — THE 

later   poem "  false -seeming  " contrast   of   the   parts 

value  of  both,  and  charm  of  the  first marie  de  france 

and  ruteb(euf  —  drama  —  adam  de  la  halle  —  "  robin  et 
Marion"  —  the  "jeu  de  la  feuillie  " — comparison  of  them 

—  early  french  prose  —  laws  and  sermons — villehardouln 

—  william  of  tyre  —  joinville  —  fiction  • —  '  aucassin  et 
nicolette.' 

The  contriljutioiis  of  France  to  European  literature 
Thepredomiu-  mentioned  in  the  tliree  chapters  (II.-IV.) 
ance  of  France,  -^j^ich  deal  witli  tlis  thrcB  main  sections 
of  Romance,  great  as  we  have  seen  them  to  be,  by  no 


266  EUllOPEAxN    LITEEATUKE,    1100-1300. 

means  exhausted  the  debt  which  literature  owes  to 
her  during  this  period.  It  is  indeed  not  a  little 
curious  that  the  productions  of  this  time,  long  al- 
most totally  ignored  in  France  itself,  and  even  now 
rather  grudgingly  acknowledged  there,  are  the  only 
periodic  set  of  productions  that  justify  the  claim,  so 
often  advanced  by  Frenchmen,  that  their  country  is 
at  the  head  of  the  literary  development  of  Europe. 
It  was  not  so  in  the  fourteenth  century,  when  not  only 
Chaucer  in  England,  but  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boc- 
caccio in  Italy,  attained  literary  heights  to  which  none 
of  their  French  contemporaries  even  approached.  It 
was  not  so  in  the  fifteenth,  when  France,  despite 
Villon  and  others,  was  the  very  School  of  Dulness, 
and  even  England,  with  the  help  of  the  Scottish  poets 
and  Malory,  had  a  slight  advantage  over  her,  while 
she  was  far  outstripped  by  Italy.  It  was  not  so  in 
the  sixteenth,  when  Italy  hardly  yet  fell  behind,  and 
Spain  and  England  far  outwent  her :  nor,  according 
to  any  just  estimate,  in  the  seventeenth.  In  the 
eighteenth  her  pale  correctness  looks  faint  enough, 
not  merely  beside  the  massive  strength  of  England, 
but  beside  the  gathering  force  of  Germany :  and  if 
she  is  the  equal  of  the  best  in  the  nineteenth,  it  is  at 
the  very  most  a  bare  equality.  But  in  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  France,  if  not  Paris,  was  in  reality 
the  eye  and  brain  of  l^^urope,  the  place  of  origin  of 
almost  every  literary  form,  the  place  of  finishing  and 
polishing,  even  for  those  forms  which  she  did  not 
originate.  She  not  merely  taught,  she  wrought — and 
wrouuht  consummateh'.     She  revived  and  transformed 


THE   *  fox/   the   '  EOSE,'   ETC,  267 

the  fable ;  perfected,  if  she  did  not  invent,  the  beast- 
epic  ;  brought  the  short  prose  tale  to  an  exquisite 
completeness ;  enlarged,  suppled,  chequered,  the  some- 
what stiff  and  monotonous  forms  of  Provencal  lyric 
into  myriad-noted  variety  ;  devised  the  prose-memoir, 
and  left  capital  examples  of  it ;  made  attempts  at  the 
prose  history ;  ventured  upon  much  and  performed  no 
little  in  the  vernacular  drama ;  besides  the  vast  per- 
formance, sometimes  inspired  from  elsewhere  but 
never  as  literature  copied,  which  we  have  already 
seen,  in  her  fostering  if  not  mothering  of  Eomance. 
When  a  learned  and  enthusiastic  Icelander  speaks  of 
his  patrimony  in  letters  as  "  a  native  literature  which, 
in  originality,  richness,  historical  and  artistic  worth, 
stands  unrivalled  in  modern  Europe,"  we  can  admire 
the  patriot  but  must  shake  our  heads  at  the  critic. 
For  by  Dr  Vigfusson's  own  confession  the  strength 
of  Icelandic  literature  consists  in  the  sagas,  and  the 
sagas  are  the  product  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries.  At  that  very  time  France,  besides  the 
chansons  dc  geste — as  native,  as  original,  as  the  sagas, 
and  if  less  rich,  far  more  artistic  in  form — France 
has  to  show  the  great  romances  proper,  which  Iceland 
herself,  like  all  the  world,  copied,  a  lyric  of  wonderful 
charm  and  abundance,  the  vast  comic  wealth  of  the 
faliliaux  and  the  Fox-eiAc,  prose  not  merely  of  laws 
and  homilies  and  rudimentary  educational  subjects, 
but  of  every  variety,  drama,  history,  pliilosophy,  alle- 
gtjry,  dream. 

To  give  an  account  of  these  various  things  in  great 
detail  would  nut  merely  be  impossible  here,  Init  would 


268  EUROPEAN   LITEKATUKE,    llUO-1300. 

injure  the  scheme  and  thwart  the  purpose  of  this  his- 
Theriseof  tory.  We  must  survey  them  in  the  gross, 
Allegory,  qj.  yvith  a  few  examples — showing  the  les- 
sons taught  and  the  results  achieved,  from  the  lyric, 
which  was  probably  the  earliest,  to  the  drama  and  the 
prose  story,  which  were  pretty  certainly  the  latest  of 
the  Erench  experiments.  But  we  must  give  largest 
space  to  the  singular  growth  of  Allegory.  This,  to 
some  extent  in  the  beast-epic,  to  a  far  greater  in  one 
of  the  most  epoch  -  making  of  European  books,  the 
Romance  of  the  Hose,  set  a  fashion  in  Europe  which 
had  hardly  passed  away  in  three  hundred  years, 
and  which,  latterly  rather  for  the  worse,  but  in  the 
earlier  date  not  a  little  for  the  better,  coloured  not 
merely  the  work  directly  composed  in  imitation  of 
the  great  originals,  but  all  literary  stuff  of  every 
kind,  from  lyric  to  drama,  and  from  sermons  to 
prose  tales. 

It  has  been  said  elsewhere  that  the  shaping  of  a 
prosody  suitable  for  lyric  was  the  great  debt  which 
Europe  owes  to  the  language  of  Provence. 
And  this  is  not  at  all  inconsistent  with  the 
undoubted  critical  fact  that  in  a  Corpus  Lyricoruvi  the 
best  songs  of  the  northern  tongues  would  undoubtedly 
rank  higher,  according  to  all  sound  canons  of  poetical 
criticism,  than  the  best  lyrics  of  the  southern.  Eor, 
as  it  happens,  we  have  lyrics  in  at  least  two  most 
vigorous  northern  tongues  before  they  had  gone  to 
school  to  southern  prosody,  and  we  can  see  at  once 
the  defects  in  them.  The  scanty  remains  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  lyric  and  the  more  copious  remains  of  Icelandic 


THE   '  FOX,'    THE    '  HOSE,'    ETC.  269 

display,  with  no  little  power  and  pathos,  and  plenty 
of  ill-organised  "  cry,"  an  almost  total  lack  of  ability 
to  sing.  Every  now  and  then  their  natural  genius 
enables  them  to  hit,  clumsily  and  laboriously,  on 
something — the  refrain  of  the  Complaint  of  Deor,  the 
stepped  stanzas  of  the  Lesson  of  Loddfafni — resem- 
bling the  more  accomplished  methods  of  more  educated 
and  long  -  descended  literatures.  But  the  poets  are 
always  in  a  Robinson  Crusoe  condition,  and  worse: 
for  Eobinson  had  at  least  seen  the  tools  and  utensils 
he  needed,  if  he  did  not  know  how  to  make  them. 
The  scops  and  scalds  were  groping  for  the  very 
pattern  of  the  tools  themselves. 

The  languG  d'oc,  first  of  all  vernacular  tongues,  bor- 
rowed from  Latin,  as  Latin  had  borrowed  from  Greek, 
such  of  the  practical  outcomes  of  the  laws  of  lyric 
harmony  in  Aryan  speech  as  were  suitable  to  itself ; 
and  passed  the  lesson  on  to  the  trouveres  of  the  north 
of  France — if  indeed  these  did  not  work  out  the  trans- 
fer for  themselves  almost  independently.  And  as  there 
was  much  more  northern  admixture,  and  in  particular 
a  less  tyrannous  softness  of  vowel  -  ending  in  the 
languc  d'o'il,  this  second  stage  saw  a  great  increase  of 
suppleness,  a  great  emancipation  from  monotony,  a 
wonderful  freshness  and  wealth  of  colour  and  form. 
It  has  been  said,  and  I  see  no  reason  to  alter  the 
saying,  that  the  French  tongue  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries  was  actually  better  suited  for 
lyrical  poetry,  and  did  actually  produce  lyrical  poetry, 
as  far  as  prosody  is  concerned,  of  a  fresher,  freer,  more 
spontaneous  kind,  from   the  twelfth  century   to  the 


270  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,   1100-1300. 

beginning  of  the  fifteentli  than  has  ever  been  the  case 
since.^ 

M.  Alfred  Jeauroy  has  written  a  learned  and  ex- 
tensive monograph  on  Les  Origines  dc  la  Poesie  Lyriqite 
en  France,  which  with  M.  Gaston  Raynaud's  Biblio- 
(jraphie  ties  Chansonniers  Francais,  and  his  collection 
of  Motets  of  our  present  period,  is  indispensable  to  the 
thorough  student  of  the  subject.^  But  for  general 
literary  purposes  the  two  classics  of  the  matter  are,  and 
are  long  likely  to  be,  the  charming  Romancero  Frangais  ^ 
which  M.  Paulin  Paris  published  in  the  very  dawn  of 
the  study  of  mediaeval  literature  in  France,  and  the 
admirable  Fi,omanzcn  und  Pastourellcn'^  which  Herr 
Karl  Bartsch  collected  and  issued  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury ago.  Here  as  elsewhere  the  piecemeal  system  of 
publication  which  has  been  the  bane  of  the  whole 
subject  is  to  be  regretted,  for  with  a  little  effort  and  a 
little  division  of  labour  the  entire  corpus  of  French 
lyric  from  the  tenth  to  the  fourteenth  century  might 
have  been  easily  set  before  the  public.  But  the  two 
volumes  above  mentioned  will  enable  the  reader  to 
jiidge  its  general  characteristics  with  pretty  absolute 
sureness ;  and  if  he  desires  to  supplement  them  with 
the  work  of  a  single  author,  that  of  Thibaut  of  Cham- 

^  This  is  not  inconsistent  with  allowing  that  no  single  French  lyric 
poet  is  the  equal  of  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,  and  that  the  exer- 
cises of  all  are  hampered  by  the  lack — after  the  earliest  examples — 
of  trisyllabic  metres. 

^  M.  Jeanroy,  as  is  also  the  case  with  other  writers  of  monographs 
mentioned  in  this  chapter,  has  contributed  to  M.  Petit  de  Julleville's 
Histoire  [v.  p.  23)  on  his  subject. 

•'  Paris,  1833.  *  Leipzig,  1870. 


THE   'FOX,'    THE    '  r.OSE,'   ETC.  271 

pagne  or  Xavarre/  which  is  easily  accessible,  will  fonn 
an  excellent  third. 

In  this  northern  lyric — that  is  to  say,  northern  as 

compared  with  Provengal  ^ — we  find  all  or  almost  all 

^,  „  the  artificial  forms  which  are  characteristic 

The  Romance 

and  the  Pas-  of  Provcn^al  itsclf ,  somc  of  them  no  doubt 
rather  sisters  than  daughters  of  their  ana- 
logues in  the  lanrjuc  d'oc.  Indeed,  at  the  end  of  our 
present  period,  and  still  more  later,  the  ingenuity  of 
the  troiLveres  seems  to  have  pushed  the  strictly  formal, 
strictly  artificial  part  of  the  poetry  of  the  troubadours 
to  almost  its  furthest  possible  limits  in  varieties  of 
triolet  and  rondeau,  hcdladc  and  chant  royal.  IJut  the 
Romances  and  the  PastoiLrelles  stand  apart  from  these, 
and  both  are  recognised  by  authorities  among  the 
troubadours  themselves  as  specially  northern  forms. 
The  differentia  of  each  is  in  subject  rather  than  in 
form,  the  "  romance  "  in  this  sense  being  a  short  love- 
story,  with  little  more  than  a  single  incident  in  it 
sometimes,  but  still  always  possessing  an  incident ;  the 
Pastourelle,  a  special  variety  of  love-story  of  the  kind 
so  curiously  popular  in  all  inedia'val  languages,  and 
so  curiously  alien  from  modern  experience,  where  a 
passing  knight  sees  a  damsel  of  low  degree,  and  woos 
her  at  once,  with  or  without  success,  or  where  two 
personages  of  the  shepherd  kind  sue  and  are  sued  with 
evil  hap  or  good.  In  other  words,  the  "romance"  is 
supremely  presented  in  English,  and  in  the  much- 
abused  fifteenth  century,  by  the  Nut-Broivne  Maid,  the 

'  Rheims,  1851. 

^  This  for  convenience'  sake  is  postponed  to  cliaji.  viii. 


272  EUEOPEAN   LITEPvATUKE,    1100-1300. 

"  pastourelle  "  by  Henrysou's  Robene  and  Makyne.  Per- 
liaps  there  is  nothing  quite  so  good  as  either  in  the 
French  originals  of  both ;  certainly  there  is  nothing 
like  the  union  of  metrical  felicity,  romantic  conduct, 
sweet  but  not  mawkish  sentiment,  and  never-flagging 
interest  in  the  anonymous  masterpiece  which  the 
ever-blessed  Arnold  preserved  for  us  in  his  Chronicle. 
But  the  diffused  merits  —  the  so-to-speak  "class- 
merits" — of  the  poems  in  general  are  very  high  in- 
deed :  and  when  the  best  of  the  other  lyrics — auhades, 
dShats,  and  what  not — are  joined  to  them,  they  supply 
the  materials  of  an  anthology  of  hardly  surpassed 
interest,  as  well  for  the  bubbling  music  of  their 
refrains  and  the  trill  of  their  metre,  as  for  the  fresh 
mirth  and  joy  of  living  in  their  matter.  The  "  German 
paste  in  our  composition,"  as  another  Arnold  had  it, 
and  not  only  that,  may  make  us  prefer  the  German 
examples ;  but  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  but  for 
these  it  is  at  least  not  improbable  that  those  would 
never  have  existed. 

To  select  capital  examples  from  so  large  a  body 
is  no  easy  task.  One  or  two,  indeed,  have  "  made 
fortune,"  the  most  famous  of  them  being  the  great 
anhadc  (chief  among  its  kind,  as  "  En  un  vergier  sotz 
folha  d'albespi "  is  among  the  Proven(;al  albas),  which 
begins — 

"  Gaite  de  la  tor, 

Gardez  entor 

Les  murs,  si  Deus  vos  voie  ; "  ^ 

1  Romancero  Francais,  p.  66. 


THE   '  FOX,'   THE    '  P.OSE,'   ETC.  273 

and  where  the  gaite  (watcher)  answers  (like  a  Cornish 
watcher  of  tlie  pilchards) — 

"  Hn  !  et  hu  !  et  Im  !  ct  hu  !  " 

Then  there  is  the  group,  among  the  oldest  and  the 
best  of  all,  assigned  to  Audefroy  le  Batard — a  most 
delectable  garland,  which  tells  how  the  loves  of  Gerard 
and  Fair  Isabel  are  delayed  (with  the  refrain  "  et  joie 
atent  Gerars "),  and  how  the  joy  comes  at  last ;  of 
"  belle  Ydoine  "  and  her  at  first  ill-starred  passion  for 
"li  cuens  [the  Count]  Garsiles";  of  Beatrix  and  Guy; 
of  Argentine,  whose  husband  better  loved  another ;  of 
Guy  the  second,  who  aima  Emmelot  defoi — all  charm- 
ing pieces  of  early  verse.  And  then  there  are  hundreds 
of  others,  assigned  or  anonymous,  in  every  tone,  from 
the  rather  unreasonable  request  of  the  lady  who 
demands — 

"  Por  coi  me  bast  mes  maris  1 
laysette  !  '* 

immediately  answering  her  own  question  by  con- 
fessing that  he  has  found  her  embracing  her  lover, 
and  threatening  further  justification  ;  through  the  less 
impudent  but  still  not  exactly  correct  morality  of 
"Henri  and  Aiglentine,"  to  the  blameless  loves  of 
Koland  and  "  Bele  Erembors "  and  the  moniage  of 
"  Bele  Doette "  after  her  lover's  death,  with  the 
words — - 

"  Tant  mar  i  fustes,  cuens  Do,  frans  de  nature, 
por  vostre  aor  vestrai  je  la  haire 
ne  sur  men  cors  n'arai  pelice  vaire." 

This  conduct  differs  sufficiently  from  that  of  tlie  un- 

S 


274  EUEOPEAN   LITERATUEE,    1100-1300. 

named  heroine  of  another  song,  who  in  the  sweetest 
and  smoothest  of  verse  bids  her  husband  never  to 
mind  if  she  stays  with  her  lover  that  night,  for  the 
night  is  very  sliort,  and  he.  the  husband,  shall  have 
her  back  to-morrow  ! 

And  besides  the  morality,  perverse  or  touching,  the 
quaint  manners,  the  charming  unusual  names  or  forms 
of  names,  Oriour.  Oriolanz,  Ysabiaus,  Aigline, — there 
are  delightful  fancies,  borrowed  often  since : — 

"  Li  rossignox  est  mon.  pere, 

Qui  chante  sur  la  ramee 
el  plus  haut  boscage  ; 

La  seraine  ele  est  nia  mere, 
qui  chante  en  la  mer  salee 

el  plus  haut  rivage.'' 

Something  in  the  very  sound  of  the  language  keeps 
for  us  the  freshness  of  the  imagery — the  sweet-briar 
and  the  hawthorn,  the  mavis  and  the  oriole — which 
has  so  long  become  puUica  materies.  It  is  not 
withered  and  hackneyed  by  time  and  tongues  as, 
save  when  genius  touches  it,  it  is  now.  The  dew  is 
still  on  all  of  it ;  and,  thanks  to  the  dead  language, 
the  dead  manners,  it  will  always  be  on.  All  is  just 
near  enough  to  us  for  it  to  be  enjoyed,  as  we  cannot 
enjoy  antiquity  or  the  East ;  and  yet  the  "  wall  of 
glass  "  which  seven  centuries  interpose,  while  hiding 
nothing,  keeps  all  intact,  unhackneyed,  strange,  fresh. 
There  may  be  better  poetry  in  the  world  than  these 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  century  French  lyrics :  there  is 
certainly  higher,  grander,  more  respectable.  Lut  I 
doubt  whether  there  is  any  sweeter  or,   in  a  certain 


THE   '  FOX,'    THE   '  UOSE,'    ETC.  275 

.sense,  more  poignant.  The  nightingale  and  the  mer- 
maid were  justified  of  their  cliildren. 

It  is  little  wonder  that  all  Europe  soon  tried  to 
imitate  notes  so  charming,  and  in  some  cases,  thouiih 
other  languages  were  far  behind  French  in  develop- 
ment, tried  successfully.  Our  own  "  Alison,"  ^  the  first 
note  of  true  English  lyric,  is  a  "  romance  "  of  the  most 
genuine  kind ;  the  songs  of  Walther  von  der  Vogel- 
weide,  of  which  we  have  also  spoken,  though  they  may 
rise  higher,  yet  owe  their  French  originals  service,  hold 
of  them,  would  either  never  or  much  later  have  come 
into  existence  but  for  them.  An  astonishing  privilege 
for  a  single  nation  to  have  enjoyed,  if  only  for  a  short 
time ;  a  privilege  almost  more  astonishing  in  its  recep- 
tion than  even  in  itself.  France  could  point  to  the 
chansons  and  to  the  ro7navccs,  to  Audefroy  le  Bastard 
and  Chrestien  of  Troyes,  to  Villehardouiu  and  Thibaut, 
to  William  of  Lorris  and  John  of  Meung,  to  the 
fabliaux  writers  and  the  cyclists  of  Renart,  in  justifica- 
tion of  her  claims.  She  shut  them  up ;  she  forgot 
them ;  she  sneered  at  them  whenever  they  were  re- 
membered ;  and  she  appointed  as  her  attorneys  in  the 
court  of  Parnassus  Nicolas  Boileau-Despreaux  and 
Francois  Arouet  de  Voltaire ! 

No  more  curious  contrast,  but  also  none  which  could 

more  clearly  show  the  enormous  vigour  and  the  unique 

variety  of  the  French  genius  at  this  time. 

The.  Fal)li;nix.  .  .         ,,  ^    .  ,.,. 

can  be  imagined  than  that  wlncli  is  pre- 
sented l)y  the  next  division  to  which  we  come — tlio 
division  occupied  by  the  celebrated  poems,  or  at  least 

'  See  p.  210. 


276  EUEOPEAN   LITER ATUUE,    1100-1300. 

verse  -  compositions,  known  as  fabliaux.  These,  for 
reasons  into  which  it  is  perhaps  better  not  to  inquire 
too  closely,  have  been  longer  and  better  known  than 
any  other  division  of  old  French  poetry.  They  were 
first  collected  and  published  a  hundred  and  forty  years 
ago  by  Barbazan ;  they  were  much  commented  on  by 
Le  Grand  d'Aussy  in  the  last  years  of  the  last  century, 
were  again  published  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  present 
by  Meon,  and  recently  have  been  re-collected,  divested 
of  some  companions  not  strictly  of  their  kind,  and 
published  in  an  edition  desirable  in  every  respect  by 
]\'I.  Anatole  de  Montaiglon  and  ]\I.  Gaston  Eaynaud.^ 
Since  this  collection  M.  Bedier  has  executed  a  mono- 
graph upon  them  which  stands  to  the  subject  much  as 
that  of  M.  Jeanroy  does  to  the  Lyrics.  But  a  great 
deal  of  it  is  occupied  by  speculations,  more  interesting 
to  the  folk-lorist  than  to  the  student  of  literature,  as 
to  the  origin  of  the  stories  themselves.  This,  though 
a  question  of  apparently  inexhaustible  attraction  to 
some  people,  must  not  occupy  us  very  long  here.  It 
shall  be  enough  to  say  that  many  of  these  subjects  are 
hardy  perennials  which  meet  us  in  all  literatures, 
and  the  existence  of  which  is  more  rationally  to  be 
accounted  for  by  the  supposition  of  a  certain  common 
form  of  story,  resulting  partly  from  the  conditions  of 
human  life  and  character,  partly  from  the  conforma- 
tion of  the  human  intellect,  than  by  supposing  de- 
liberate transmission  and  copying  from  one  nation  to 
another.  For  this  latter  explanation  is  one  of  those 
which,  as  has  been  said,  only  push  ignorance  further 

1  6  vols.     Paris,  1872-90. 


THE   '  FOX,'   THE   '  ItOSE,'   ETC.  277 

back ;  and  in  fact,  leave  us  at  the  last  with  no  alter- 
native except  that  which  we  might  have  adopted  at 
the  first. 

That,  however,  some  assistance  may  have  been  given 

to  the  general  tendency  to  produce  the  same  forms  by 

the  literary  knowledge  of  earlier,  especially 

Their  origin.  n         •  c         i  • 

iLastern,  collections  oi  tales  is  no  extrava- 
gant supposition,  and  is  helped  by  the  undoubted  fact 
that  actual  translations  of  such  collections — Dolopathos, 
the  Sevcji  Sages  of  Rome}  and  so  forth — are  found  early 
in  French,  and  chiefly  at  second-hand  from  the  French 
in  other  languages.  But  the  general  tendency  of  man- 
kind, reinforced  and  organised  by  a  certain  specially 
literary  faculty  and  adaptability  in  the  French  genius, 
is  on  the  whole  sufficient  to  account  for  the  fabliau. 

It  presents,  as  we  have  said,  the  most  striking  and 
singular  contrast  to  the  Lyric  poems  which  we  have 
just  noticed.  The  technical  morality  of 
these  is  extremely  accommodating,  indeed 
(in  its  conventional  and  normal  form)  very  low.  But  it 
is  redeemed  by  an  exquisite  grace  and  charm,  by  true 
passion,  and  also  by  a  great  decency  and  accomplish- 
ment of  actual  diction.  Coarse  language — very  rare 
in  the  romances,  though  there  are  a  few  examples  of 
it — is  rarer  still  in  the  elaborate  formal  lyric  of  the 
twelfth  and  thirteentli   century  in  French.      In  the 

1  For  these  see  tlie  texts  and  editorial  matter  of  Ihlopathos,  cd. 
Brunet  and  De  Moiitaiglon  (Bibliothcque  Elzevirienne),  Paris,  1S.')6  ; 
and  of  Le  Roiimn  dcs  Sept  Saycs,  ed.  G.  Paris  (Soc.  dcs  A  nc.  Textcs), 
Paris,  1875.  The  English  Seven  Saycs  (in  Weber,  vol.  iii. )  has  been 
thought  to  be  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  Gcsta  Romanorwiii  in 
any  of  its  numerous  forms  is  jirobably  later. 


278  EUROPEAN    LITEKATUKE,    1100-1300. 

fabliaux,  which  are  only  a  very  little  later,  and  which 
seem  not  to  have  been  a  favourite  form  of  composition 
very  long  after  the  fourteenth  century  had  reached  its 
prime,  coarseness  of  diction,  though  not  quite  invari- 
able, is  the  rule.  Not  merely  are  the  subjects,  in  the 
majority  of  cases,  distinctly  "  broad,"  but  the  treat- 
ment of  them  is  broader  still.  In  a  few  instances  it 
is  very  hard  to  discern  any  wit  at  all,  except  a  kind 
similar  to  that  known  much  later  in  England  as 
"  selling  bargains  " ;  and  almost  everywhere  the  words 
which,  according  to  a  famous  classical  French  tag, 
hravent  llionneteU,  in  Latin,  the  use  of  which  a  Eoman 
poet  has  vaunted  as  Romana  simjjlicitas,  and  which 
for  some  centuries  have  been  left  alone  by  regular 
literature  in  all  European  languages  till  very  recent- 
ly,— appear  to  be  introduced  on  purpose  as  part  of 
the  game.  In  fact,  it  is  in  the  faldiatt  that  the  char- 
acteristic which  Mr  Matthew  Arnold  selected  as  the 
opprobrium  of  the  French  in  life  and  literature  prac- 
tically makes  its  first  appearance.  And  though  the 
"lubricity"  of  these  poems  is  free  from  some  ugly 
features  which  appear  after  the  Italian  wars  of  the 
late  fifteenth  century,  it  has  never  been  more  frankly 
destitute  of  shamefacedness. 

It  would,  however,  be  extremely  unfair  to  let  it  be 

supposed  that  the  fahliaux  contain  nothing  but  ob- 

scenitv,  or  that  they  can  offer  attractions  to 

Their  wit.  " 

no  one  save  those  whom  obscenity  attracts. 
As  in  those  famous  English  followings  of  them,  where 
Chaucer  considerably  reduced  the  licence  of  language, 
and  still  more  considerably  increased  the  dose  of  wit 


THE   '  fox/   the   '  ROSE.'    ETC.  279 

— the  Eeeve's  and  Miller's  sections  of  the  Canterbury 
Tales — the  lack  of  decency  is  very  often  accompanied 
by  no  lack  of  sense.  And  a  certain  proportion,  includ- 
ing some  of  the  very  best  in  a  literary  point  of  view, 
are  not  exposed  to  the  charge  of  any  impropriety  either 
of  language  or  of  subject. 

There  is,  indeed,  no  special  reason  why  the  fahliau 
should  be  "  improper "  (except  for  the  greater  ease  of 
Definition  and  getting  a  laugh)  according  to  its  definition, 
siibjecu.  which  is  capable  of  being  drawn  rather  more 

sharply  than  is  always  the  case  with  literary  kinds.  It 
is  a  short  tale  in  verse — almost  invariably  octosyllabic 
couplets — dealing,  for  the  most  part  from  the  comic 
point  of  view,  with  incidents  of  ordinary  life.  This 
naturally  admits  of  the  widest  possible  diversity  of 
subject :  indeed  it  is  only  by  sticking  to  the  condi- 
tion of  "  ordinary  life  "  that  the  faUiau  can  be  differ- 
entiated from  the  short  romance  on  one  side  and  the 
allegoric  beast-fable  on  the  other.  Even  as  it  is,  its 
most  recent  editors  have  admitted  among  their  157 
examples  not  a  few  which  are  simple  jciix  d'es^prit  on 
the  things  of  humanity,  and  others  which  are  in  effect 
short  romances  and  nothing  else.  Of  these  last  is  the 
best  known  of  all  the  non-Eabelaisian  fabliaux,  "  Le 
Vair  Palefroi,"  which  has  been  Englished  by  Leigh 
Hunt  and  shortly  paraphrased  by  Peacock,  while  ex- 
amples of  the  former  may  be  found  without  turning 
very  long  over  even  one  of  MM.  de  Montaiglon  and 
Eaynaud's  pretty  and  learned  volumes.  A  very  large 
proportion,  as  might  be  expected,  draw  their  comic 
interest    from    satire    on    priests,   on    women,   or    on 


280  EUROPEAN   LITEKATURE,    1100-1300. 

both  together;  and  this  very  general  character  of  the 
fabliaVjX  (which,  it  must  be  remembered,  were  per- 
formed or  recited  by  the  very  same  joiKjleurs  who 
conducted  the  pubHcation  of  the  chansons  de  geste  and 
the  romances)  was  no  doubt  partly  the  result  and 
partly  the  cause  of  the  persistent  dislike  and  dis- 
favour with  which  the  Church  regarded  the  profes- 
sion of  jonglerie.  It  is,  indeed,  from  the  fabliaux 
themselves  that  we  learn  much  of  what  we  know 
about  the  jongleurs ;  and  one  of  not  the  least  amus- 
ing i  deals  with  the  half-clumsy,  half-satiric  boasts 
of  two  members  of  the  order,  who  misquote  the  titles 
of  their  Hipcrtoire,  make  by  accident  or  intention 
ironic  comments  on  its  contents,  and  in  short  do 
not  magnify  their  office  in  a  very  modern  spirit  of 
humorous  writing. 

Every  now  and  then,  too,  we  find,  in  the  half-random 
and  wholly  scurrile  slander  of  womankind,  a  touch  of 
real  humour,  of  the  humour  that  has  feeling  behind 
it,  as  here,  where  a  sufficiently  ribald  variation  on  the 
theme  of  the  "  Ephesian  matron  "  ends — 

"  For  ce  teng-je  celui  a.  fol 
Qui  trop  met  en  fame  sa  cure  ; 
Fame  est  de  trop  foible  nature, 
De  noient  rit,  de  noient  pleure, 
Fame  aime  et  liet  en  trop  j)oi  d'eure  : 
Tost  est  ses  talenz  remuez, 
Qui  fame  croit,  si  est  desvfes." 

So  too,  again,  in  "  La  Housse  Partie,"  a  piece  which 
perhaps  ranks  next  to  the  "  Vair  Palefroi "   in  general 

'  "  Les  Deux  Bordeors  [bourders,  jesters]  Ribaux." 


THE    'fox/    the    'KOSE/   ETC.  281 

estimation,  there  is  neither  purely  romantic  interest, 
as  in  the  Palfrey,  nor  the  interest  of  "  the  pity  of  it," 
as  in  the  piece  just  quoted ;  but  an  ethical  purpose, 
showing  out  of  the  mouth  of  babes  and  sucklings  the 
danger  of  filial  ingratitude. 

But,  as  a  general  rule,  there  is  little  that  is  serious 
in  these  frequently  graceless  but  generally  amusing 
compositions.  There  is  a  curious  variety  about  them, 
and  incidentally  a  crowd  of  lively  touches  of  common 
life.  The  fisherman  of  the  Seine  starts  for  his  day's 
work  or  sport  with  oar  and  tackle ;  the  smith  plies 
the  forge ;  the  bath  plays  a  considerable  part  in  the 
stories,  and  we  learn  that  it  was  not  an  unknown 
habit  to  eat  when  bathing,  which  seems  to  be  an 
unwise  attempt  to  double  luxuries,  A  short  sketch 
of  medieeval  catering  might  be  got  out  of  the  fabliaux, 
where  figure  not  merely  the  usual  dainties — capons, 
partridges,  pies  well  peppered — but  eels  salted,  dried, 
and  then  roasted,  or  more  probably  grilled,,  as  we  grill 
kippered  salmon.  Here  we  have  a  somewhat  less 
grimy  original— perhaps  it  was  actually  the  original — 
of  Skelton's  "  Tunning  of  Elinor  Eumming  " ;  and  in 
many  places  other  patterns,  the  later  reproductions  of 
which  are  well  known  to  readers  of  Boccaccio  and  the 
Gent  Nouvelles  Nouvellcs  of  La  Fontaine  ■  and  his  fol- 
lowers. Title  after  title — "  Du  Prestre  Crucifie,"  "  Du 
Prestre  et  d' Alison,"'  &c.^ — tells  us  that  the  clergy  are 
going  to  be  lampooned.  Sometimes,  where  the  fun 
is  no  worse  than  childish,  it  is  childish  enough  — 
plays  on  words,  jokes  on  English  mispronunciation  of 
French,  and  so   forth.      But  it  very  seldom,  though  it 


282  EUROPEAN   LITERATUEE,    1100-1300. 

is  sometimes  intolerably  nasty,  approaches  the  sheer 
drivel  which  appears  in  some  English  would-be  comic 
writing  of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  the  very  early  Eenais- 
ance — such,  for  instance,  as  most  of  that  in  the  prose 
"  Pleasant  Historic  of  Thomas  of  Reading,"  ^  which 
the  late  Mr  Thoms  was  pleased  to  call  a  romance. 
Yet  the  actual  stuff  of  "  Thomas  of  Eeading "  is  very 
much  of  the  nature  of  the  fabliaux  (except  of  course 
the  tragical  part,  which  happens  to  be  the  only  good 
part),  and  so  the  difference  of  the  handling  is  note- 
worthy. So  it  is  also  in  English  verse-work  of  the 
kind — the  "  Hunting  of  the  Hare  "  -  and  the  like — to 
take  examples  necessarily  a  little  later  than  our  time. 
Eor  in  these  curious  compositions  the  esprit  Gaulois 
found  itself  completely  at  home ;  indeed  some  have 
,  ,     held  that  here  it  hit  upon  its  most  charac- 

Efcct  of  the  ^  _  ■■• 

fabliaux  oil     tcristic   and   peculiar   development.       The 

language.  i       p    i        r>  i  ^  c  •  p 

wonderiui  lacuity  tor  expression  —  tor 
giving,  if  not  the  supreme,  yet  the  adequate  and 
technically  masterly  dress  to  any  kind  of  literary 
production  —  which  has  been  the  note  of  French 
literature  throughout,  and  which  was  never  more 
its  note  than  at  this  time,  enabled  the  language,  as 
we  have  seen  and  shall  see,  to  keep  as  by  an 
easy  sculling  movement  far  ahead  of  all  its  com- 
petitors. But  in  other  departments,  with  one  or 
two    exceptions,   the  union   of    temper   and   craft,   of 

^  Early  EmjUsh  Prose  Jiomanccs  (2d  ed.,  London,  1858),  i.  71.  The 
text  of  this  is  only  Deloney's  and  sixteenth  century,  but  much  of  the 
matter  must  be  far  earlier. 

-  Weber,  iii.  177- 


THE  '  fox/  the  '  rose;  etc.  283 

inspiration  and  execution,  was  not  quite  perfect. 
Here  there  was  no  misalliance.  As  the  language 
lost  the  rougher,  fresher  music  which  gives  such 
peculiar  attraction  to  the  chansons,  as  it  disused 
itself  to  the  varied  trills,  the  half  -  inarticulate 
warblings  which  constitute  the  charm  of  the  lyrics, 
so  it  acquired  the  precision,  the  flexibility,  the 
nettetS,  which  satiric  treatment  of  the  follies  and 
evil  chances  of  life,  the  oddities  of  manners  and 
morals,  require.  It  became  bright,  if  a  little  hard, 
easy,  if  a  little  undistinguished,  capable  of  slyness, 
of  innuendo,  of  "  malice,"  but  not  quite  so  capable  as 
it  had  been  of  the  finer  and  vaguer  suggestions  and 
aspirations. 

Above  all,  these  fabliaux  served  as  an  exercise- 
ground  for  the  practice  in  which  French  was  to 
And  on  narra-  becomc  almost  if  uot  quitc  supreme,  the 
*^'"^-  practice     of    narrative.       In    the    longer 

romances,  which  for  a  century  or  a  century  and  a 
half  preceded  the  fahliaux,  the  art  of  narration,  as 
has  been  more  than  once  noticed,  was  little  attended 
to,  and  indeed  had  liltle  scope.  The  chansons  had 
a  common  form,  or  something  very  like  it,  which 
almost  dispensed  the  trouvere  from  devoting  much 
pains  to  the  individual  conduct  of  the  story.  The 
most  abrupt  transitions  were  accustomed,  indeed  ex- 
pected; minor  incidents  received  very  little  attention; 
the  incessant  fighting  secured  the  attention  of  the 
probable  hearers  by  itself ;  the  more  grandiose  and 
striking  incidents — the  crowning  of  Prince  Louis  and 
the  indignation  of  William  at  his  sister's  ingratitude, 


284  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

for  instance — were  not  "  engineered "  or  led  up  to 
in  any  way,  but  left  to  act  in  mass  and  by  assault. 

The  smaller  range  and  more  delicate  —  however 
indelicate — argument  of  the  fcMiaux  not  only  invited 
Conditions  of  ^^ut  almost  necessitated  a  different  kind 
uhxmxx-writing.  ^f  handling.  The  story  had  to  draw  to 
point  in  (on  an  average)  two  or  three  hundred  lines 
at  most — there  are  fabliaux  of  a  thousand  lines,  and 
fahliavx  of  tliirty  or  forty,  but  the  average  is  as  just 
stated.  The  incidents  had  to  be  adjusted  for  best 
effect,  neither  too  many  nor  too  few.  The  treatment 
had  to  be  mainly  provocative — an  appeal  in  some 
cases  by  very  coarse  means  indeed  to  very  coarse 
nerves,  in  others  by  finer  devices  addressed  to  senses 
more  tickle  o'  the  sere.  And  so  grew  up  that  unsur- 
passed and  hardly  matched  product  the  French  short 
story,  where,  if  it  is  in  perfection,  hardly  a  word  is 
thrown  away,  and  not  a  word  missed  that  is  really 
wanted. 

The  great  means  for  doing  this  in  literature  is 
irony ;  and  irony  appears  in  the  fabliaux  as  it  had 
The  appearance  hardly  douc  siucc  Luciau.  Take,  for  in- 
of irony.  staucc,  this   Opening  of   a  piece,  the  rest 

of  which  is  at  least  as  irreverent,  considerably  less 
quotable,  but  not  much  less  pointed : — 

"  Qnant  Dieus  ot  estore  lo  monde, 
Si  con  il  est  a  la  reonde, 
Et  quanque  il  convit  dedans, 
Trois  ordres  establir  de  genz, 
Et  fist  el  siecle  demoranz 
Chevalers,  clers  et  lalooranz. 


THE   '  FOX,'    THE    '  ROSE,'   ETC.  285 

Les  clievalers  toz  asena 

As  terres,  et  as  clers  dona 
Les  aumosnes  et  les  dimages  ; 
Puis  asena  les  laborages 
As  laborenz,  por  laborer. 
Qant  ce  ot  fet,  sanz  demeler 
D'iluec  parti,  et  s'en  ala." 

What  two  orders  were  left,  and  how  the  difficulty 
of  there  being  nothing  left  for  them  was  got  over, 
may  be  found  by  the  curious  in  the  seventy-sixth 
fahliau  of  the  third  volume  of  the  collection  so  often 
quoted.  But  the  citation  given  will  show  that  there 
is  nothing  surprising  in  the  eighteenth-century  history, 
literary  or  poetical,  of  a  country  which  could  produce 
such  a  piece,  certainly  not  later  than  the  thirteenth. 
Even  Voltaire  could  not  put  the  thing  more  neatly 
or  with  a  more  complete  freedom  from  superfluous 
words. 

It   will   doubtless   have    been    observed    that    the 

fahliau — though    the   word   is   simply  fabula  in   one 

of    its    regular    Eomance    metamorphoses, 

Fables  proper. 

and  though  the  method  is  sufficiently 
^sopic — is  not  a  "  fable  "  in  the  sense  more  especi- 
ally assigned  to  the  term.  Yet  the  mediaeval  languages, 
especially  French  and  Latin,  were  by  no  means  desti- 
tute of  fables  properly  so  called.  On  the  contrary, 
it  would  appear  that  it  was  precisely  during  our  present 
period  that  the  rather  meagre  yEsopisings  of  l^htedrns 
and  Babrius  were  expanded  into  the  fuller  collection 
of  beast-stories  which  exists  in  various  forms,  the 
chief  of  them  being  the  Ysopet  (the  name  generally 
given  to  the  class  in  Eomance)  of  Marie  de  Fraiice, 


286  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

the  somewhat  later  Lyoner  Ysopet  (as  its  editor,  Dr 
Forster,  calls  it),  and  the  origiual  of  this  latter,  the 
Latin  elegiacs  of  the  so-called  Anonymus  Neveldi} 
The  collection  of  Marie  is  interesting,  at  least,  because 
of  the  author,  whose  more  famous  Lais,  composed, 
it  would  seem,  at  the  Court  of  Henry  III.  of  England 
about  the  meeting  of  the  twelfth  and  tliirteenth  cen- 
turies, and  forming  a  sort  of  offshoot  less  of  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Arthurian  story  than  of  its  spirit,  are 
among  the  most  delightful  relics  of  mediaeval  poetry. 
But  the  Lyons  book  perhaps  exhibits  more  of  the 
characteristic  which,  evident  enough  in  the  fabliau 
proper,  discovers,  after  passing  as  by  a  channel 
through  the  beast-fable,  its  fullest  and  most  famous 
form  in  the  world-renowned  Romance,  of  Beynard  the 
Fox,  one  of  the  capital  works  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  with  the  sister  but  contrasted  Romance  of  the 
Ro.se,  as  much  the  distinguishing  literary  product  of 
the  thirteenth  century  as  the  romances  proper — Car- 
lovingian,  Arthurian,  and  Classical — are  of  the  twelfth. 
Not,  of  course,  that  the  antiquity  of  the  Reynard 
story  itself  -  does  not  mount  far  higher  than  the  thir- 
teenth century.     No  two  things  are  more  remarkable 

^  Works  of  Marie;  ed.  Eoquefort,  Paris,  1820;  or  ed.  Warnke, 
Halle,  1885.  The  Lyona-  Ysopct,  with  the  Anonymus;  ed.  Forster, 
Heilbronn,  1882. 

-  Ronutn  du  (should  be  dc)  Renart :  ed.  Moon  and  Chabaille,  5  vols., 
Paris,  1826-35  ;  ed.  Martin,  3  vols,  text  and  1  critical  observations, 
Strasburg,  1882-87.  RcincJce  de  Vos,  ed.  Prien,  Halle,  1887,  with  a 
valuable  bibliography.  Reinacrt,  ed.  Martin,  Paderborn,  1874.  Rein- 
ardus  Vulpcs,  ed.  Mone,  Stuttgart,  1834.  Reinhart  Fuchs,  ed.  Grimm, 
Berlin,  1832.  On  the  story  there  is  perhaps  nothing  better  than 
Carlylo,   as  quoted  supra. 


THE   '  FOX,'    THE    '  I^OSE,'    ETC.  287 

as  results  of  that  comparative  and  simultaneous  study 
Reyiiai.itik;  of  literature,  to  which  this  series  hopes  to 
Fox.  gi^y  some  little  assistance,  than  the  way  in 

which,  on  the  one  hand,  a  hundred  years  seem  to  be 
in  the  Middle  Ages  but  a  day,  in  the  growth  of  certain 
kinds,  and  on  tlie  other  a  day  sometimes  appears  to  do 
the  work  of  a  hundred  years.  We  have  seen  how  in 
the  last  two  or  three  decades  of  the  twelfth  century 
the  great  Arthurian  legend  seems  suddenly  to  fill  the 
whole  literary  scene,  after  being  previously  but  a  meagre 
chronicler's  record  or  invention.  The  growth  of  the 
Keynard  story,  though  to  some  extent  contemporane- 
ous, was  slower ;  but  it  was  really  the  older  of  the  two. 
Before  the  middle  of  this  century,  as  we  have  seen, 
there  was  really  no  Arthurian  story  worthy  the  name ; 
it  would  seem  that  by  that  time  the  Ifeynard  legend 
had  already  taken  not  full  but  definite  form  in  Latin, 
and  there  is  no  reasonable  reason  for  scepticism  as  to 
its  existence  in  vernacular  tradition,  though  perhaps 
not  in  vernacular  writing,  for  many  years,  perhaps  for 
more  than  one  century,  earlier. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  but  that  so  strange,  so 

interesting,  and  so  universally  popular  a  story  as  that 

of  King  Noble  and  liis  not  always  loving 

Order  of  tcxU.  ,.,,11  i  f 

subjects,  should  have  been  made,  as  usual, 
the  battle-ground  of  literary  fancy  and  of  tluit  general 
tendency  of  mankind  to  ferocity,  wliich,  unluckily,  the 
study  of  helles  lettres  does  not  seem  very  appreciably 
to  soften.  Assisted  by  the  usual  fallacy  of  antedating 
MSS.  in  the  early  days  of  palffiographic  study,  and  by 
their  prepossessions  as  Germans,  some  early  students 


288  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

of  the  lieynard  story  made  out  much  too  exclusive  and 
too  early  claims,  as  to  possession  hy  right  of  invention, 
for  the  country  in  which  Eeynard  has  no  doubt,  for  the 
last  four  centuries  or  so,  been  much  more  of  a  really 
popular  hero  than  anywhere  else.  Investigation  and 
comparison,  however,  have  had  more  healing  effects 
here  than  in  other  cases ;  and  since  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  fact  that  the  very  early  Middle  High  Ger- 
man version  of  Henry  the  Glichezare,  itself  of  the  end 
of  the  twelfth  century,  is  a  translation  from  the  French, 
there  has  not  been  much  serious  dispute  about  the  order 
of  the  Eeynard  romances  as  we  actually  have  them. 
That  is  to  say,  if  the  Latin  Isengrimus  —  the  oldest 
Meinarchis  Vulpes  —  of  1150  or  thereabouts  is  actu- 
ally the  oldest  text,  the  older  branches  of  the  French 
Benart  pretty  certainly  come  next,  with  the  High 
German  following  a  little  later,  and  the  Low  Ger- 
man Reinclce  cle  Vos  and  the  Flemish  Reinaert  a  little 
later  still.  The  Southern  Romance  nations  do  not 
seem — indeed  the  humour  is  essentially  Northern — 
to  have  adopted  Eeynard  with  as  much  enthusiasm 
as  they  showed  towards  the  Eomances ;  and  our  Eng- 
lish forms  were  undoubtedly  late  adaptations  from 
foreign  originals. 

If,  however,  this  account  of  the  texts  may  be  said 
to  be  fairly  settled,  the  same  cannot  of  course  be  said 
as  to  the  origin  of  tlie  story.  Here  there 
are  still  champions  of  the  German  claim, 
whose  number  is  increased  by  those  who  stickle  for  a 
definite  "Low"  German  origin.  Some  French  patriots, 
with  a  stronger  case  than  they  generally  have,  still 


THE   '  FOX.    THE   '  ROSE,'   ETC.  289 

maintain  the  story  to  be  purely  French  in  inception. 
I  have  not  myself  seen  any  reason  to  change  tlie  opin- 
ion I  formed  some  fifteen  years  ago,  to  the  effect  that 
it  seems  likely  that  the  original  language  of  the  epic  is 
French,  but  French  of  a  Walloon  or  Picarcl  dialect,  and 
that  it  was  written  somewhere  between  the  Seine  and 
the  Ehine. 

The  character  and  accomplishment  of  the  story, 
however,  are  matters  of  much  more  purely  literary 
interest  than  the  rather  barren  question  of  the  prob- 
able— it  is  not  likely  that  it  will  ever  be  the  proved 
— date  or  place  of  origin  of  this  famous  thing.  The 
fable  in  general,  and  the  beast-fable  in  particular,  are 
among  the  very  oldest  and  most  universal  of  the  known 
forms  of  literature.  A  fresh  and  special  development 
of  it  might  have  taken  place  in  any  country  at  any 
time.  It  did,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  take  place  somewhere 
about  the  twelfth  century  or  earlier,  and  somewhere  in 
the  central  part  of  the  northern  coast  district  of  the 
old  Frankish  empire. 

As  usual  with  mediaeval  work,  when  it  once  took 
hold  on  the  imagination  of  writers  and  hearers,  the 

The  French    hulk  is  vcry  great,  especially  in  the  French 

form.  forms,  which,  taking  them  altogether,  can- 

not fall  much  short  of  a  hundred  thousand  lines.  This 
total,  however,  includes  developments — Ze  Couronnc- 
mcnt  Benart,  Benart  le  Nouvd,  and,  later  than  our 
present  period,  a  huge  and  still  not  very  well-known 
thins  called  Benart  le  Contrcfait,  which  are  distinct  ad- 
ditions  to  the  first  conception  of  the  story.  Yet  even 
that  first  conception  is  not  a  story  in  the  single  sense. 

T 


290  EUROPEAN   LITER ATUEE,    1100-1300. 

Its  thirty  thousand  lines  or  thereabouts  are  divided 
into  a  considerable  number  of  what  are  called  braiiches, 
attributed  to  authors  sometimes  anonymous,  some- 
times named,  but  never,  except  in  the  one  case  of 
Renart  Ic  Bcstoumi,  known.^  And  it  is  always  difficult 
and  sometimes  impossible  to  determine  in  what  rela- 
tion these  branches  stand  to  the  main  trunk,  or  which 
of  them  is  the  main  trunk  The  two  editors  of  the 
Roman,  Meon  and  Herr  Martin,  arrange  them  in  dif- 
ferent orders ;  and  I  do  not  think  it  would  be  in  the 
least  difficult  to  make  out  a  good  case  for  an  order,  or 
even  a  large  number  of  orders,  different  still.'-^ 

By  comparison,  however,  with  the  versions  in  other 
languages,  it  seems  not  very  doubtful  that  the  complaint 
of  Isengrim  the  Wolf  as  to  the  outrages  committed  by 
Eeynard  on  the  complainant's  personal  comfort,  and  the 
honour  of  Hersent  his  wife — a  complaint  laid  formally 
before  King  Noble  the  Lion — forms,  so  far  as  any  single 
thing  can  be  said  to  form  it,  the  basis  and  beginning 
of  the  Eeynard  story.  The  multiplication  of  complaints 
by  other  beasts,  the  sufferings  inflicted  by  Eeynard  on 
the  messengers  sent  to  summon  him  to  Court,  and  his 
escapes,  by  mixture  of  fraud  and  force,  when  he  is  no 
longer  able  to  avoid  putting  in  an  appearance,  supply 
the  natural  continuation. 

^  Tliis,  which  is  not  so  much  a  branch  as  an  independent  fahliau, 
is  attributed  to  Ruteboeuf,  v.  infra. 

*  The  Teutonic  versions  are  consolidated  into  a  more  continuous 
story.  But  of  the  oldest  High  German  version,  that  of  the 
Glichezare,  we  have  but  part,  and  Reincke  de  Vos  does  not  reach 
seven  thousand  verses.  The  French  forms  are  therefore  certainly  to 
be  preferred. 


THE   '  FOX,'    THE   '  ROSE,'    ETC.  291 

But  from  this,  at  least  in  the  French  versions,  the 
branches  diverge,  cross,  and  repeat  or  contradict  each 
itscoinpiim-   other  with  an  altogether  bewildering  free- 
tions.  dom.      Sometimes,   for   long    passages  to- 

gether, as  in  the  interesting  fytte,  "How  Eeynard 
hid  himself  among  the  Skins,"  ^  the  author  seems  to 
forget  tlie  general  purpose  altogether,  and  to  devote 
himself  to  something  quite  different — in  this  case  the 
description  of  the  daily  life  and  pursuits  of  a  thir- 
teenth-century sportsman  of  easy  means.  Often  the 
connection  with  the  general  story  is  kept  only  by  the 
introduction  of  the  most  obvious  and  perfunctory 
devices — an  intrigue  with  Dame  Hersent,  a  passing 
trick  played  on  Isengrim,  and  so  forth. 

Nevertheless  the  whole  is  knit  together,  to  a  degree 

altogether  unusual  in  a  work  of  such  magnitude,  due 

to  many  different  hands,  by  an  extraordi- 

Unity  of  spirit.  ,  . 

nary  unity  oi  tone  and  temper.  This  tone 
and  this  temper  are  to  some  extent  conditioned  by 
the  Else  of  Allegory,  the  great  feature,  in  succession 
to  the  outburst  of  Eomance,  of  our  present  period. 
We  do  not  find  in  the  original  licnart  branches  the 
The  Rise  of  abstracting  of  qualities  and  the  personifica- 
Aiiegory.  ^^^^^  ^f  abstractious  which  appear  in  later 
developments,  and  which  are  due  to  the  popularity  of 
the  Romance  of  the  Bose,  if  it  be  not  more  strictly 
correct  to  say  that  the  popularity,  of  the  Romance  of 
the  Rose  was  due  to  the  taste  for  allegory.  Jacquemart 
Gi^lee,  the  anther  of  Renart  le  Nouvel,  might  personify 
Rcnardie  and  work  his  beast-personages  into  knights  of 

1  Mc^on,  iii.  82 ;  Martin,  ii.  43. 


292  EUKOPEAN"   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

tourney ;  the  clerk  of  Troyes,  who  later  wrote  Bcnart 
le  Contrefait,  might  weave  a  sort  of  encyclopaedia  into 
his  piece.  But  the  authors  of  the  "  Ancien  Eenart " 
knew  better.  With  rare  lapses,  they  exhibit  wonder- 
ful art  in  keeping  their  characters  beasts,  while 
assigning  to  them  human  arts ;  or  rather,  to  put  the 
matter  with  more  correctness,  they  pass  over  the  not 
strictly  beast -like  performances  of  Eenart  and  the 
others  with  such  entire  unconcern,  with  such  a  perfect 
freedom  from  tedious  after -thought  of  explanation, 
that  no  sense  of  incongruity  occurs.  The  illustrations 
of  Moon's  Renart,  which  show  us  the  fox  painfully 
clasping  in  his  forelegs  a  stick  four  times  his  own 
length,  show  the  inferiority  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Eenart  may  beat  Ic  vilain  (everybody  beats  the  poor 
vilain)  as  hard  as  he  likes  in  the  old  French  text ;  it 
comes  all  naturally.  A  neat  copper-plate  engraving, 
in  the  best  style  of  sixty  or  seventy  years  ago,  awakes 
distrust. 

The  general  fable  is  so  familiar  that  not  much  need 
be  said  about  it.  But  it  is,  I  think,  not  unfair  to  say 
Tiie  satire  of  that  tlic  German  and  Flemish  versions,  from 
Renart.  |^}-^q  latter  of  wliicli  Caxton's  and  all  later 
English  forms  seem  to  be  copied,  are,  if  better  ad- 
justed to  a  continuous  story,  less  saturated  with  the 
quintessence  of  satiric  criticism  of  life  than  the  French 
Ficnart.  The  fault  of  excessive  coarseness  of  thought 
and  expression,  which  has  been  commented  on  in  the 
fabliaux,  recurs  here  to  the  fullest  extent ;  but  it  is 
atoned  for  and  sweetened  by  an  even  greater  measure 
of  irony.     As  to  the  definite  purposes  of  this  irony  it 


THE  'fox/  the  '  eose/  etc.  293 

would  not  be  well  to  be  too  sure.  The  passage  quoted 
on  a  former  page  will  show  with  what  completely 
fearless  satire  the  trouvh-es  treated  Church  and  State, 
God  and  Man.  It  is  certain  that  they  had  no  love  of 
any  kind  for  the  clergy,  who  were  not  merely  their 
rivals  but  their  enemies ;  and  it  is  not  probable  they 
had  much  for  the  knightly  order,  who  were  their 
patrons.  But  it  is  never  in  the  very  least  degree  safe 
to  conclude,  in  a  mediaeval  writer,  from  that  satire  of 
abuses,  which  is  so  frequent,  to  the  distinct  desire  of 
reform  or  revolution,  which  is  so  rare.  The  satire  of 
the  Rcnart  —  and  it  is  all  the  more  delightful  —  is 
scarcely  in  the  smallest  degree  political,  is  only  in  an 
interesting  archseological  way  of  the  time  ecclesiastical 
or  religious ;  but  it  is  human,  perennial,  contemptuous 
of  mere  time  and  circumstance,  throughout. 

It  cannot,  no  doubt,  be  called  kindly  satire — French 

satire  very  rarely  is,     Eenart,  the  only  hero,  though  a 

hero  sometimes  uncommonly  hard  bested,  is  a  furred 

and  four-footed  Jonathan  Wild.    He  appears  to  have 

a  creditable  paternal  affection  for  Masters 

The  Fox  himself.  ^ 

Rovel,  Percehaie,  and  the  other  cubs ;  and 
despite  his  own  extreme  licence  of  conjugal  conduct, 
only  one  or  two  branches  make  Dame  Hermeline,  his 
wife,  either  false  to  him  or  ill-treated  by  him.  In 
these  respects,  as  in  the  other  that  he  is  scarcely  ever 
outwitted,  he  has  the  advantage  of  Jonathan.  But 
otherwise  I  think  our  great  eighteenth-century  tnaufes 
was  a  better  fellow  than  Eenart,  because  he  was  much 
less  purely  malignant.  I  do  not  think  that  Jonathan 
often  said  his  prayers ;  but  he  probably  never  went  to 


294  EUllOJ'EAN    LITEKATURE,    1100-1300. 

bed,  as  lleynard  did  upon  the  hay-mow,  after  perform- 
ing his  devotions  in  a  series  of  elaborate  curses  upon 
all  his  enemies.  The  fox  is  so  clever  that  one  never 
dislikes  him,  and  generally  admires  him ;  but  he  is 
entirely  compact  of  all  that  is  worst,  not  merely  in 
beast-nature  but  in  humanity.  And  it  is  a  triumph 
of  the  writers  that,  this  being  so,  we  at  once  can  re- 
frain from  disliking  him,  and  are  not  tempted  to  like 
him  illegitimately. 

The  trouvercs  did  not  trouljle  themselves  to  work 
out  any  complete  character  among  the  many  whom 

they  grouped  round  this  great  personage ; 

but  they  left  none  without  touches  of 
vivification  and  verisimilitude.  The  female  beasts — 
Dame  fiere  or  Orgueilleuse,  the  lioness,  Hersent,  the 
she-wolf,  Hermeline,  the  vixen,  and  the  rest — are  too 
much  tinged  with  that  stock  slander  of  feminine  char- 
acter which  was  so  common  in  the  Middle  Ages.  And 
each  is  rather  too  much  of  a  type,  a  fault  which  may 
be  also  found  with  their  lords.  Yet  all  of  these — Bruin 
and  Brichemer,  Coart  and  Chanticleer,  Tybert  and 
Primaut,  Hubert  and  Eoonel  —  have  the  liveliest 
touches,  not  merely  of  the  coarsely  labelling  kind, 
but  of  the  kind  that  makes  a  character  alive.  And, 
save  as  concerns  the  unfortunate  capons  and  (/dines 
whom  Eenart  consumes,  so  steadily  and  with  such 
immunity,  it  cannot  be  said  that  their  various  mis- 
fortunes are  ever  incurred  without  a  valid  excuse  in 
poetical  justice.  Isengrim,  the  chief  of  them  all,  is 
an  especial  case  in  point.  Although  he  is  Chief  Con- 
stable, he  is  just  as  much  of  a  rascal  and  a  malefactor 


THE    '  FOX,'    THE    '  ROSE,'    ETC.  295 

as  Eenart  himself,  with  the  additional  crime  of  stupid- 
ity. One  is  disposed  to  believe  that,  if  domiciliary- 
visits  were  made  to  their  various  abodes,  Malpertuis 
would  by  no  means  stand  alone  as  a  bad  example  of  a 
baronial  abode.  Ilenart  is  indeed  constantly  spoken 
of  as  Noble's  "  baron."  Yet  it  would  be  a  great 
mistake  to  take  this  epic,  as  it  has  been  sometimes 
taken,  for  a  protest  against  baronial  oppression.  A 
sense  of  this,  no  doubt,  counts — as  do  senses  of  many 
other  oppressions  that  are  done  under  the  sun.  But 
it  is  the  satire  on  life  as  a  whole  that  is  uppermost ; 
and  that  is  what  makes  the  poem,  or  collection  of 
poems,  so  remarkable.  It  is  hard,  coai'se,  prosaic 
except  for  the  range  and  power  of  its  fancy,  libellous 
enough  on  humanity  from  behind  its  stalking-brutes. 
But  it  is  true,  if  an  exaggeration  of  the  truth ;  and  its 
constant  hugging  of  the  facts  of  life  supplies  the 
strangest  possible  contrast  to  the  graceful  but  shadowy 
land  of  romance  which  we  have  left  in  former  chapters. 
We  all  know  the  burial-scene  of  Launcelot — later,  no 
doubt,  in  its  finest  form,  but  in  suggestion  and  spirit 
of  the  time  with  which  we  are  dealing.  Let  us  now 
consider  briefly  the  burial-scene  of  Kenart. 

When  Meon,  the  excellent  first  editor  of  the  collec- 
tion, put,  as  was  reason,  the  branch  entitled  "  La  Mort 
Thehuriaiof  Bcnart "  last,  he  was  a  little  troubled  by 
rx.enart.  |^j-^q  consideration  that  several  of  the  beasts 
whom  in  former  branches  Eenart  himself  has  brought 
to  evil  ends  reappear  and  take  part  in  his  funeral. 
But  this  scarcely  argued  a  sufficient  appreciation  of 
the  true  spirit  of  the  cycle.     The  beasts,  though  per- 


296  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    ]  100-1300. 

fectly  lively  abstractions,  are.  after  all,  abstractions  in 
a  way,  and  you  cannot  kill  an  abstraction.  Nay,  the 
author,  with  a  really  grand  final  touch  of  the  pervad- 
ing satire  which  is  the  key  of  the  whole,  gives  us  to 
understand  at  the  last  that  Eenart  (though  he  has 
died  not  once,  but  twice,  in  the  course  of  the  fytte)  is 
not  really  dead  at  all,  and  that  when  Dame  Hermeline 
persuades  the  complaisant  ambassadors  to  report  to 
the  Lion -King  that  they  have  seen  the  tomb  with 
Eenart  inscribed  upon  it,  the  fact  was  indeed  true 
but  the  meaning  false,  inasmuch  as  it  was  another 
Eenart  altogether.  Indeed  the  true  Eenart  is  clearly 
immortal. 

Nevertheless,  as  it  is  his  mission,  and  that  of  his 
poets,  to  satirise  all  the  things  of  Life,  so  must  Death 
also  be  satirised  in  his  person  and  with  his  aid.  The 
branch,  though  it  is  probably  not  a  very  early  one. 
is  of  an  admirable  humour,  and  an  uncompromising 
truth  after  a  fashion,  which  makes  the  elaborate  realism 
and  pessimism  of  some  other  periods  look  singularly 
poor,  thin,  and  conventional.  The  author,  for  the 
keeping  of  his  story,  begins  by  showing  the  doomed 
fox  more  than  a  little  "  failed " — the  shadow  of  fate 
dwelling  coldly  beforehand  on  him.  He  is  badly 
mauled  at  the  opening  (though,  it  is  true,  he  takes 
vengeance  for  it)  by  monks  whose  hen-roost  he  is 
robbing,  and  when  he  meets  Coart  the  hare,  sur  son 
destrier,  with  a  vilain  whom  he  has  captured  (this  is 
a  mark  of  lateness,  some  of  the  verisimilitude  of  the 
early  time  having  been  dropped),  he  plays  him  no 
tricks.    Nay,  when  Isengrim  and  he  begin  to  play  chess 


THE  'FOX,'   THE  'ROSE/   ETC.  297 

he  is  completely  worsted  by  his  ancient  butt,  who  at 
last  takes,  in  consequence  of  an  imprudent  stake  of  the 
penniless  Fox,  a  cruel  but  appropriate  vengeance  for 
his  former  wrongs.  Eenart  is  comforted  to  some  ex- 
tent by  his  old  love,  Queen  Fiere  the  lioness ;  but  pain, 
and  wounds,  and  defeat  have  brought  him  near  death, 
and  he  craves  a  priest.  Bernard  the  Ass,  Court- Arch- 
priest,  is  ready,  and  admonishes  the  penitent  with  the 
most  becoming  gravity  and  unction.  The  confession, 
as  might  be  expected,  is  something  impudent ;  and  the 
penitent  very  frankly  stipulates  that  if  he  gets  well 
his  oath  of  repentance  is  not  to  stand  good.  But  it 
looks  as  if  he  were  to  be  taken  at  the  worse  side  of 
his  word,  and  he  falls  into  a  swoon  which  is  mistaken 
for  death.  The  Queen  laments  him  with  perfect  open- 
ness ;  but  the  excellent  Noble  is  a  philosophic  husband 
as  well  as  a  good  king,  and  sets  about  the  funeral  of 

Eenart 

("  Jamais  si  bon  baron  n'avai," 

says  he)  with  great  earnestness.  Hermeline  and  her 
orphans  are  fetched  from  Malpertuis,  and  the  widow 
makes  heartrending  moan,  as  does  Cousin  Grimbart 
when  the  news  is  brought  to  him.  The  vigils  of  the 
dead  are  sung,  and  all  the  beasts  who  have  hated 
Eenart,  and  whom  he  has  affronted  in  his  lifetime, 
assemble  in  decent  mourning  and  perform  the  service, 
with  the  ceremony  of  the  most  well -trained  choir. 
Afterwards  they  "  wake  "  the  corpse  through  the  night 
a  little  noisily ;  but  on  the  morrow  the  obsequies  are 
resumed  "  in  the  best  and  most  orgilous  manner,"  with 
a  series  of  grave-side  speeches  which  read  like  a  de- 


29B  EUEOPEAN   LITEKATUKE,    1100-1300. 

signed  satire  on  those  common  in  France  at  the  present 
day.  A  considerable  part  of  the  good  Archpriest's  own 
sermon  is  unfortunately  not  reproducible  in  sophisti- 
cated times ;  but  every  one  can  appreciate  liis  tender 
reference  to  the  deceased's  prowess  in  daring  all 
dangers — 

"  Pur  avou'  vostre  ventre  plaine, 
Et  pour  porter  a  Hermeline 
Vostre  fame,  coc  ou  geline 
Chapou,  ou  oie,  ou  gras  oison  " — 

for,  as  he  observes  in  a  sorrowful  parenthesis,  "  any- 
thing was  in  season  if  you  could  only  get  hold  of  it." 
Brichemer  the  Stag  notes  how  Eeynard  had  induced 
the  monks  to  observe  their  vows  by  making  them 
go  to  bed  late  and  get  up  early  to  watch  their  fowls. 
But  when  Bruin  the  Bear  has  dug  his  grave,  and 
holy  water  has  been  thrown  on  him,  and  Bruin  is 
just  going  to  shovel  the  earth  —  behold  !  Eeynard 
wakes  up,  catches  Chanticleer  (who  is  holding  the 
censer)  by  the  neck,  and  bolts  into  a  thick  pleached 
plantation.  Still,  despite  this  resurrection,  his  good 
day  is  over,  and  a  levee  en  masse  of  the  Lion's  people 
soon  surrounds  him,  catches  him  up,  and  forces  him 
to  release  Chanticleer,  wlio,  nothing  afraid,  challenges 
him  to  mortal  combat  on  fair  terms,  beats  him,  and 
leaves  him  for  dead  in  the  lists.  And  though  he 
manages  to  pay  Rohart  the  Eaven  and  his  wife  (who 
think  to  strip  his  body)  in  kind,  he  reaches  IMalpertuis 
dead-beat ;  and  we  feel  that  even  his  last  shift  and 
the  faithful  complaisance  of  Grimbart  will  never  leave 
him  quite  the  same  Fox  again. 


THE   '  FOX,'   THE    '  KOSE,'   ETC.  299 

The  defects  which  distinguish  almost  all  mediaeval 
poetry  are  no  doubt  discoverable  here.  There  is  some 
sophistication  of  the  keeping  in  the  episodes  of  Coart 
and  Chanticleer,  and  the  termination  is  almost  too 
audacious  in  the  sort  of  choice  of  happy  or  unhappy 
ending,  triumph  or  defeat  for  the  hero,  which  it  leaves 
us.  Yet  this  very  audacity  suits  the  whole  scheme ; 
and  tlie  part  dealing  with  the  death  (or  swoon)  and 
burial  is  assuredly  one  of  the  best  things  of  its  kind 
in  French,  almost  one  of  the  best  things  in  or  out  of 
it.  The  contrast  between  the  evident  delight  of  the 
beasts  at  getting  rid  of  Renart  and  their  punctilious 
discharge  of  ceremonial  duties,  the  grave  parody  of  rites 
and  conventions,  remind  us  more  of  Swift  or  Lucian 
than  of  any  French  writer,  even  Eabelais  or  Voltaire. 
It  happened  that  some  ten  or  twelve  years  had  passed 
between  the  time  when  the  present  writer  had  last 
ojDcned  Rcnart  (except  for  mere  reference  now  and 
then)  and  the  time  when  he  refreshed  his  memory 
of  it  for  the  purposes  of  the  present  volume.  It 
is  not  always  in  such  cases  that  the  second  judg- 
ment exactly  confirms  the  first ;  but  here,  not  merely 
in  the  instance  of  this  particular  branch  but  almost 
throughout,  I  can  honestly  say  that  I  put  down 
the  Roman  de  llcnart  with  even  a  higher  idea  of 
its  literary  merit  than  that  with  which  I  had  taken 
it  up. 

The  second  great  romance  which  distinguishes  the 
Tiie  Romance  thirteenth  century  in  France  stands,  as  we 
of  the  Rose,  may  say,  to  one  side  of  the  Roman  de  Rcnart 
as   the  fahliaux  do  to   the  other  side.      lUit,  though 


300  EUROPEAN   LITEKATQKE,    1100-1300. 

coiuplex  in  fewer  pieces,  the  Roman  de  la  liose^  is, 
like  the  liovian  de  Bcnart,  a  complex,  not  a  single 
work ;  and  its  two  component  parts  are  distinguished 
from  one  another  by  a  singular  change  of  tone  and 
temper.  It  is  the  later  and  larger  part  of  the  Hose 
which  brings  it  close  to  Bcnart  :  the  smaller  and 
earlier  is  conceived  in  a  spirit  entirely  different, 
though  not  entirely  alien,  and  one  which,  reinforc- 
ing the  satiric  drift  of  the  fabliaux  and  Rcnart  itself, 
influenced  almost  the  entire  literary  production  in 
helles  httres  at  least,  and  sometimes  out  of  them,  for 
more  than  two  centuries  throughout  Europe. 

At  no  time  probably  except  in  the  Middle  Ages 
would  Jean  de  Meung,  who  towards  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century  took  up  the  scheme  which  William 
of  Lorris  had  left  unfinished  forty  years  earlier,  have 
thought  of  continuing  the  older  poem  instead  of  be- 
ginning a  fresh  one  for  himself.  And  at  no  other 
time  probably  would  any  one,  choosing  to  make  a 
continuation,  have  carried  it  out  by  putting  such 
entirely  different  wine  into  the  same  bottle.  Of 
William  himself  little  is  known,  or  rather  nothing, 
except  that  he  must  have  been,  as  his  continuator 
certainly  was,  a  native  of  the  Loire  district ;  so  that 
the  Rose  is  a  product  of  Central,  not,  like  Rcnart, 
of  Northern  France,  and  exhibits,  especially  in  the 

*  Ed.  Michel.  Paris,  1864.  One  of  the  younger  French  scholars, 
who,  under  the  teaching  of  M.  Gaston  Paris,  have  taken  in  hand 
various  sections  of  mediaeval  literature,  M,  Langlois,  has  bestowed 
much  attention  on  the  Rose,  and  has  produced  a  monograph  on  ii^ 
Qrigines  et  Sources  du  Roman  dc  la  Rose.     Paris,  1890. 


THE   '  fox/   the   '  EOSE,'    ETC.  301 

Lorris  portion,  an  approximation  to  Provenc^al  spirit 
and  form. 

The  use  of  personification  and  abstraction,  especially 
in  relation  to  love-matters,  had  not  been  unknown 
in  the  troubadour  poetry  itself  and  in  the  northern 
verse,  lyrical  and  other;  which  grew  up  beside  or  in 
succession  to  it.  It  rose  no  doubt  partly,  if  not 
wholly,  from  the  constant  habit  in  sermons  and  theo- 
logical treatises  of  treating  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  and 
other  abstractions  as  entities.  Every  devout  or  un- 
devout  frequenter  of  the  Church  in  those  times  knew 
"  Accidia  "  ^  and  Avarice,  Anger  and  Pride,  as  bodily 
rather  than  ghostly  enemies,  furnished  with  a  regular 
uniform,  appearing  in  recognised  circumstances  and 
companies,  acting  like  human  beings.  And  these  were 
by  no  means  the  only  sacred  uses  of  allegory. 

When  "William  of  Lorris,  probably  at  some  time  in 
the  fourth  decade  of  the  thirteenth  century,  set  to 
,,.„.      .-r     work  to  write  the  Romance  of  the  Rose,  he 

William  of  Lor-  ''  ' 

ris  and  Jean  de  adjustcd  tliis  allcgorical  handling  to  the 
purposes  or  love-poetry  with  an  ingenious 
intricacy  never  before  attained.  It  has  been  the 
fashion  almost  ever  since  the  famous  Romance  was 
rescued  from  the  ignorant  and  contemptuous  oblivion 
into  which  it  had  fallen,  to  praise  Jean  de  Meung's 
part  at  the  expense  of  that  due  to  William  of  Lorris. 
l')Ut  this  is  hard  to  justify  either  on  directly  aesthetic 
or  on  historical  principles  of  criticism.     In  the  first 

^  "Sloth"  is  a  rather  unhappy  substitute  for  Accidia  {a. K-fiSeia), 
the  gloomy  and  impious  despair  and  indifference  to  good  living  and 
even  life,  of  wliich  sloth  itself  is  but  a  partial  result. 


302  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

place,  there  can  be  no  question  that,  vitally  as  he 
changed  the  spirit,  Jean  cle  j\Ieung  was  wholly  in- 
debted to  his  predecessor  for  the  form — the  form  of 
half-pictorial,  half-poetic  allegory,  which  is  the  great 
characteristic  of  the  poem,  and  which  gave  it  the  enor- 
mous attraction  and  authority  that  it  so  long  pos- 
sessed. In  the  second  place,  clever  as  Jean  de  Meung 
is,  and  more  thoroughly  in  harmony  as  he  may  be 
with  the  esjjrit  gcmlois,  his  work  is  on  a  much  lower 
literary  level  than  that  of  his  predecessor.  Jean  de 
Meung  in  the  latter  and  larger  part  of  the  poem  simply 
stuffs  into  it  stock  satire  on  women,  stock  learning, 
stock  semi-pagan  morality.  He  is,  it  is  true,  tolerably 
actual ;  he  shares  with  the  fahliau-writeTS  and  the 
authors  of  Renart  a  firm  grasp  on  the  perennial  rascal- 
ities and  meannesses  of  human  nature.  The  negative 
commendation  that  he  is  "  no  fool "  may  be  very 
heartily  bestowed  upon  him.  But  he  is  a  little  com- 
monplace and  more  than  a  little  prosaic.  There  is 
amusement  in  him,  but  no  charm :  and  where  (that  is 
to  say,  in  large  spaces)  there  is  no  amusement,  there 
is  very  little  left.  Nor,  except  for  the  inappropriate 
exhibition  of  learning  and  the  strange  misuse  of  poet- 
ical (at  least  of  verse)  allegory,  can  he  be  said  to  be 
eminently  characteristic  of  his  own  time.  His  very 
truth  to  general  nature  prevents  that ;  while  his 
literary  ability,  considerable  as  it  is,  is  hardly  suffi- 
cient to  clothe  his  universally  true  reflections  in  a 
universally  acceptable  form. 

The  first  four  thousand  and  odd  lines  of  the  Eo- 
mance,  on  the  other  hand  —  for  beyond  them  it  is 


THE   '  FOX,'    THE   '  ROSE,'   ETC,  303 

known  that  the  work  of  William  of  Lorris  does  not 
q;o — contain  matter  which  may  seem  but 

The.  first,  part.     5^.  .  '' 

little  connected  with  criticism  of  life,  ar- 
ranged in  a  form  completely  out  of  fashion.  But  they, 
beyond  all  question,  contain  also  the  first  complete 
presentation  of  a  scheme,  a  mode,  an  atmosphere, 
whicli  for  centuries  enchained,  because  they  expressed, 
the  poetical  thought  of  the  time,  and  which,  for  those 
who  can  reach  the  right  point  of  view,  can  develop  the 
right  organs  of  appreciation,  possess  an  extraordinary, 
indeed  a  unique  charm.  I  should  rank  this  first  part 
of  the  Roman  dc  la  Hose  high  among  the  books  which 
if  a  man  does  not  appreciate  he  cannot  even  distantly 
understand  the  Middle  Ages ;  indeed  there  is  perhaps 
no  single  one  which  on  the  serious  side  contains  such 
a  master-key  to  their  inmost  recesses. 

To  comprehend  a  Gothic  cathedral  the  Hose  should 
be  as  familiar  as  the  Dies  lire.     For  the  spirit  of  it  is 

indeed,    though    faintly   "  decadent,"    even 

Its  capital  value 

more  the  mediaeval  spirit  than  that  of  the 
Arthurian  legend,  precisely  for  the  reason  that  it  is 
less  universal,  less  of  humanity  generally,  more  of  this 
particular  phase  of  humanity.  And  as  it  is  opposed  to, 
rather  than  complementary  of,  the  religious  side  of  the 
matter  in  one  direction,  so  it  opposes  and  completes 
the  satirical  side,  of  which  we  have  heard  so  much  in 
this  chapter,  and  the  purely  fighting  and  adventurous 
part,  which  we  have  dealt  with  in  others,  not  exclud- 
ing by  any  means  in  this  half-reflective,  half-contrast- 
ing office,  the  philosophical  side  also.  Yet  when  men 
pray  and  fight,  when  they  sneer  and  speculate,  they 


304'  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

are  constrained  to  be  very  like  themselves  and  each 
other.  They  are  much  freer  in  their  dreams :  and  the 
Bomance  of  the  Hose,  if  it  has  not  much  else  of  life,  is 
like  it  in  this  way — that  it  too  is  a  dream. 

As  such  it  quite  honestly  holds  itself  out.  The 
author  lays  it  down,  supporting  himself  with  the 
opinion  of  another  "  qui  ot  nom  macrobes,"  that 
dreams  are  quite  serious  things.  At  any  rate  he  will 
tell  a  dream  of  his  own,  a  dream  which  befell  him  in 
his  twentieth  year,  a  dream  wherein  was  nothing 

"  Qui  avenu  trestout  ne  soit 
Si  com  le  songes  racantoit." 

And  if  any  one  wishes  to  know  how  the  romance 
telling  this  dream  shall  be  called — 

"  Ce  est  li  Rommanz  de  la  Rose, 
Ou  I'ars  d'amorz  est  tote  enclose." 

The  poem  itself  opens  with  a  description  of  a  dewy 
morn  in  May,  a  description  then  not  so  hackneyed 
The  rose-  ^^>  chicfly  froui  this  very  instance,  it  after- 
garden.  wards  becamc,  and  in  itself  at  once  "set- 
ting," so  to  speak,  the  frame  of  gracious  decorative 
imagery  in  which  the  poet  works.  He  "threaded  a 
silver  needle  "  (an  odd  but  not  unusual  mediaeval  pas- 
time was  sewing  stitches  in  the  sleeve)  and  strolled, 
cousant  ses  inanches,  towards  a  river-bank.  Then,  after 
bathing  his  face  and  seeing  the  bright  gravel  flashing 
through  the  water,  he  continued  his  stroll  down-stream, 
till  he  saw  in  front  of  him  a  great  park  (for  this 
translates  the  mediaeval  verger  much  better  than 
"  orchard "),    on   the  wall   of   wliich    were   portrayed 


THE   '  FOX,'   THE   '  EOSE/   ETC.  305 

certain  images  ^ — Hatred,  Felony,  Villainy,  Covetous- 
ness,  Avarice,  Envy,  Sadness,  Old  Age,  Hypocrisy,  and 
Poverty.  These  personages,  who  strike  the  allegoric 
and  personifying  note  of  the  poem,  are  described  at 
varying  length,  the  last  three  being  perhaps  the  best. 
Despite  these  uninviting  figures,  the  Lover  (as  he  is 
soon  called)  desires  violently  to  enter  the  park  ;  but  for 
a  long  time  he  can  find  no  way  in,  till  at  length  Dame 
Oyseuse  (Idleness)  admits  him  at  a  postern.  She 
is  a  very  attractive  damsel  herself ;  and  she  tells  the 
Lover  that  Delight  and  all  his  Court  haunt  the  park, 
and  that  he  has  had  the  ugly  images  made,  apparently 
as  skeletons  at  the  feast,  to  heighten,  not  to  dash,  en- 
joyment. Entering,  the  Lover  thinks  he  is  in  the 
Earthly  Paradise,  and  after  a  time  he  finds  the  fair 
company  listening  to  the  singing  of  Dame  Lyesse 
(Pleasure),  with  much  dancing,  music,  and  entertain- 
ment of  jongleurs  and  jongleresses  to  help  pass  the 
time. 

Courtesy  asks  him  to  join  in  the  karolc  (dance),  and 
he  does  so,  giving  full  description  of  her,  of  Lyesse, 
of  Delight,  and  of  the  God  of  Love  himself,  with  his 
bow-bearer  Sweet-Glances,  who  carries  in  each  hand 
five  arrows — in  the  right  Beauty,  Simpleness,  Frank- 
ness, Companionship,  Fair-Seeming  ;  in  the  left  Pride, 
Villainy ,2    Shame,   Despair,   and    "  New  -  Thought " — 

^  "  Seven"  says  the  verse  chapter-heading,  which  is  a  feature  of  the 
poem  ;  but  the  actual  text  does  not  mention  the  number,  and  it  will 
be  seen  that  there  were  in  fact  tc7i.  The  author  of  the  licadings  was 
no  doubt  thinking  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins. 

-  Vilcnie  is  never  an  easy  word  to  translate  :  it  means  general  mis- 
conduct and  disagreeable  behaviour. 

U 


306  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

i.e.,  Fickleness.  Other  personages  —  sometimes  with 
the  same  names,  sometimes  with  different  —  follow 
in  the  train ;  Cupid  watches  the  Lover  that  he  may 
take  shot  at  him,  and  the  tale  is  interrupted  by  an 
episode  giving  the  story  of  Narcissus.  Meanwhile 
the  Lover  has  seen  among  the  flowers  of  the  garden 
one  rose-bud  on  which  he  fixes  special  desires.  The 
thorns  keep  him  off;  and  Love,  having  him  at  vantage, 
empties  the  right-hand  quiver  on  him.  He  yields 
himself  prisoner,  and  a  dialogue  between  captive  and 
captor  follows.  Love  locks  his  heart  with  a  gold  key ; 
and  after  giving  him  a  long  sermon  on  his  duties, 
illustrated  from  the  Round  Table  romances  and  else- 
where, vanishes,  leaving  him  in  no  little  pain,  and  still 
unable  to  get  at  the  Rose.  Suddenly  in  his  distress 
there  aj^pears  to  him 

"  Un  valet  buen  et  avenant 
Bel-Acueil  se  faisoit  clamer," 

and  it  seems  that  he  was  the  son  of  Courtesy. 

Bialacoil  (to  give  him  his  Chaucerian  ^  Englishing)  is 
most  obliging,  and  through  his  help  the  Lover  has  nearly 
reached  the  Rose,  when  an  ugly  personage 
named  Danger  in  turn  makes  his  appear- 
ance. Up  to  this  time  there  is  no  very  important 
difficulty  in  the  interpretation  of  the  allegory  ;  but  the 
learned  are  not  at  one  as  to  what  "  Danger  "  means. 

^  I  am  well  aware  of  eveiything  that  has  been  said  about  and 
against  the  Chaucerian  authorship  of  the  English  Rose.  But  until 
the  learned  philologists  who  deny  that  authorship  in  whole  or  in  part 
agree  a  little  better  among  themselves,  they  must  allow  literary 
critics  at  least  to  suspend  their  judgment. 


THE    '  FOX,'    TTTE    '  TIOSE,'   ETC.  307 

The  older  explanation,  and  the  one  to  which  I  myself 
still  incline  as  most  natural  and  best  suiting  what 
follows,  is  that  Danger  is  the  representative  of  the 
beloved  one's  masciiline  and  other  guardians — her 
husband,  father,  brother,  mother,  and  so  forth.  Others, 
however,  see  in  him  only  subjective  obstacles  —  the 
coyness,  or  caprice,  or  coquettishness  of  the  Beloved 
herself.  But  these  never  troubled  a  true  lover  to 
any  great  extent;  and  besides  they  seem  to  have 
been  provided  for  by  the  arrows  in  the  left  hand  of 
Love's  bow-bearer,  and  by  Shame  {v.  infra).  At  any 
rate  Danger's  proceedings  are  of  a  most  kill-joy  nature. 
He  starts  from  his  hiding-place — 

"  Grans  fu,  et  noirs  et  liericies, 
S'ot  les  iex  rouges  comiiie  feus, 
Le  nes  froncie,  le  vis  hideus, 
Et  s'escrie  comme  forcenes." 

He  abuses  Bialacoil  for  bringing  the  Lover  to  the 
Eose,  and  turns  the  Lover  out  of  the  park,  while 
Bialacoil  flies. 

To  the  disconsolate  suitor  appears  Eeason,  and  does 

not  speak  comfortable  words.     She  is  described  as  a 

middle-aged  lady  of  a  comely  and  dignified 

"  Jleason."  -  -  -  .    ,,       . 

appearance,  crowned,  and  made  specially  m 
God's  image  and  likeness.  She  tells  him  that  if  he  had 
not  put  himself  under  the  guidance  of  Idleness,  Love 
would  not  have  wounded  him ;  that  besides  Danger, 
he  has  made  her  own  daughter  Shame  his  foe,  and 
also  Male-Bouche  (Scandal,  Gossip,  Evil -Speaking), 
the  third  and  most  formidable  guardian  of  the  Rose. 


308  EUKOPEAX   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

He  ought  never  to  have  surrendered  to  Love,  In  the 
service  of  that  power 

"  il  a  phis  poine 
Que  n'ont  herniite  ne  blanc  moiiie  ; 
La  poine  en  est  demesuree, 
Et  la  joie  a  courte  duree." 

The  Lover  does  not  take  this  sermon  welL  He  is 
Love's :  she  may  go  about  her  business,  which  she 
does.  He  bethinks  him  that  he  has  a  companion, 
Amis  (the  Friend),  who  has  always  been  faithful; 
and  he  will  go  to  him  in  his  trouble.  Indeed  Love 
had  bidden  him  do  so.  The  Friend  is  obliging  and 
consoling,  and  says  that  he  knows  Danger.  His  bark 
is  worse  than  his  bite,  and  if  he  is  spoken  softly  to 
he  will  relent.  The  Lover  takes  the  advice  with  only 
partial  success.  Danger,  at  first  robustious,  softens 
so  far  as  to  say  that  he  has  no  objection  to  the  Lover 
loving,  only  he  had  better  keep  clear  of  his  roses. 
The  Friend  represents  this  as  an  important  point 
gained ;  and  as  the  next  step  Pity  and  Frankness  go 
as  his  ambassadresses  to  Danger,  who  allows  Bialacoil 
to  return  to  him  and  take  him  once  more  to  see  the 
Kose,  more  beautiful  than  ever.  He  even,  assisted 
by  Venus,  is  allowed  to  kiss  his  love. 

This  is  very  agreeable :  but  it  arouses  the  two  other 
guardians  of  whom  Eeason  has  vainly  warned  him, 

"s^ame- ««(?  Shame    and    Evil  -  Speaking,   or    Scandal. 

"Scandal."  ^^iQ  latter  wakcs  Jealousy,  Fear  follows, 
and  Fear  and  Shame  stir  up  Danger.  He  keeps  closer 
watch.  Jealousy  digs  a  trench  round  the  rose  -  bush 
and  builds  a  tower  where  Bialacoil  is  immured :  and 


THE    'FOX,'   THE    'HOSE,'   ETC.  309 

the  Lover,  his  case  only  made  worse  by  tlie  remembered 
savour  of  the  Eose  on  his  lips,^  is  left  helpless  outside. 
But  as  the  rubric  of  the  poem  has  it — 

"  Cyendroit  trespassa  Guillaume 
De  Lorris,  et  n'en  fist  plus  pseaulme." 

The  work  which  forty  years  later  Jean  de  Meung 
(some  say  at  royal  suggestion)  added  to  the  piece,  so 
The  later  &§  to  make  it  five  times  its  former  length, 
poem.  j^g^g  ]3Qgjj  spoken  of  generally  already,  and 
needs  less  notice  in  detail.  Jean  de  Meung  takes 
up  the  theme  by  once  more  introducing  Eeason,  whose 
remonstrances,  with  the  Lover's  answers,  take  nearly 
half  as  much  room  as  the  whole  story  hitherto.  Then 
reappears  the  Friend,  who  is  twice  as  long-winded 
as  Eeason,  and  brings  the  tale  up  to  more  than  ten 
thousand  lines  already.  At  last  Love  himself  takes 
some  pity  of  his  despairing  vassal,  and  besieges  the 
tower  where  Bialacoil  is  confined.  This  leads  to  the 
introduction  of  the  most  striking  and  characteristic 
''False-  figure  of  the  second  part,  Faux-Semhlant, 
Seeming."  g^  variety  of  Eeynard.  Bialacoil  is  freed: 
but  Danger  still  guards  the  Eose.  Love,  beaten, 
invokes  the  help  of  his  mother,  who  sends  Nature 
and  Genius  to  his  aid.  They  talk  more  than  any- 
body else.  But  Venus  has  to  come  herself  before 
Danger  is  vanquished  and  the  Lover  plucks  the  Eose. 

1  "  Car  ge  suis  a  greignor  meschief 
Por  la  joie  que  j'ai  perdue. 
Que  s'onques  ue  Teussi  eue." 

Dante  undoubtedly  had  this  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  the  immortal 
Nessun  magyior  dolore.   All  this  famous  passage,  1.  4  557  sq.,  is  admirable. 


310  EUKOl'EAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

The  appeal  of  this  famous  poem  is  thus  twofold, 
though   the   allegorical  form  in  which   the   appeal  is 

Contrast  of    coiiveyecl  is   the   same.     In   the   first   part 

theparts.  ^]^  ^|-^q  love  -  poctrj  of  troubadour  and 
trouvere  is  gathered  up  and  presented  under  the  guise 
of  a  graceful  dreamy  symbolism,  a  little  though  not 
much  sicklied  o'er  with  learning.  In  the  second  the 
satiric  tendency  of  the  FaUiaux  and  Benart  is  carried 
still  further,  with  an  admixture  of  not  often  apposite 
learning  to  a  much  greater  extent.  Narcissus  was 
superfluous  where  William  of  Lorris  introduced  him, 
but  Pygmalion  and  his  image,  inserted  at  great  length 
Ijy  Jean  de  Meung,  when  after  twenty  thousand  lines 
the  catastrophe  is  at  length  approaching,  are  felt  to 
be  far  greater  intruders. 

The  completeness  of  the  representation  of  the  time 

given  by  the  poem  is  of  course  enormously  increased 

.^  .    by   this   second   part,  and   the   individual 

Value  of  both,       •'  ^ 

andcharvi      touchcs,  tliougli  rather  lost  in  the  wilder- 

of  the  first.  i<    ,,     t   •        •  ,  n    i  i        jj 

ness  of  skipping  octosyllables,  are  won- 
derfully sharp  and  true  at  times.  Yet  to  some  judg- 
ments at  any  rate  the  cliarm  of  the  piece  will  seem 
mostly  to  have  vanished  when  Bialacoil  is  once  shut 
up  in  his  tower.  In  mere  poetry  Jean  de  Meung  is 
almost  infinitely  the  inferior  of  William  of  Lorris: 
and  though  the  latter  may  receive  but  contemptuous 
treatment  from  persons  who  demand  "messages," 
"meanings,"  and  so  forth,  others  will  find  message 
and  meaning  enough  in  his  allegorical  presentation 
of  the  perennial  quest,  of  "  the  way  of  a  man  with  a 
maid,"  and  more  than  enough  beauty  in  the  pictures 


THE   'FOX,'    THE   '  KOSE/    ETC.  311 

with  which  he  has  adorned  it.  He  is  indeed  the  first 
great  word-painter  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  for  long 
— almost  to  the  close  of  them — most  poets  simply 
copied  him,  while  even  the  greatest  used  him  as  a 
starting-point  and  source  of  hints.^  Also  besides  pic- 
tures he  has  music — music  not  very  brilliant  or  varied, 
but  admirably  matchilig  his  painting,  soft,  dreamy, 
not  so  much  monotonous  as  uniform  with  a  soothing 
uniformity,  Few  poets  deserve  better  than  William 
of  Lorris  the  famous  hyperbole  which  Greek  fur- 
nished in  turn  to  Latin  and  to  English.  He  is  indeed 
"  softer  than  sleep,"  and,  as  soft  sleep  is,  laden  with 
gracious  and  various  visions. 

The  great  riches  of  French  literature  at  this  time, 
and  the  necessity  of  arranging  this  history  rather  with 
,^    .  ,  „        a  view  to  "  epoch-makincj "  kinds  and  books 

Marie  cle  France  J^  o 

and  Riuehceuf.  than  to  interesting  individual  authors,  make 
attention  to  many  of  these  latter  impossible  here. 
Thus  Marie  de  France  '^  yields  to  few  authors  of  our 
two  centuries  in  charm  and  interest  for  the  reader ; 
yet  for  us  she  must  be  regarded  chiefly  as  one  of  the 
practitioners  of  the  fable,  and  as  the  chief  practitioner 
of  the  Lai,  which  in  her  hands  is  merely  a  subdivision 
of  the  general  romance  on  a  smaller  scale.  So,  again, 
the  trouvhx  Euteboeuf,  who  has  been  the  subject  of 
critical    attention,    a    little    disproportionate    perhaps, 

1  The  following  of  the  Rose  would  take  a  volume,  even  treated  as 
the  poem  itself  is  here.  The  EngUsh  version  has  been  referred  to  : 
Italian  naturalised  it  early  in  a  sonnet  cycle,  II  Fiore.  Every  country 
welcomed  it,  but  the  actual  versions  are  as  nothing  to  the  imitations 
and  the  influence. 

-  See  note  above,  p.  286. 


312  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,.    1100-1300. 

considering  the  vast  amount  of  work  as  good  as  his 
which  has  hardly  any  critical  notice,  but  still  not 
undeserved,  must  serve  us  rather  as  an  introducer  of 
the  subject  of  dramatic  poetry  than  as  an  individual, 
though  his  work  is  in  the  bulk  of  it  non-dramatic,  and 
though  almost  all  of  it  is  full  of  interest  in  itself. 

E,uteboeuf  ^  (a  name  which  seems  to  be  a  professional 
nom  de  guerre  rather  than  a  patronymic)  was  married 
in  1260,  and  has  devoted  one  of  his  characteristic 
poems,  half  "  complaints,"  half  satires,  to  this  not 
very  auspicious  event.  For  the  rest,  it  is  rather  con- 
jectured than  known  that  his  life  must  have  filled  the 
greater  part,  if  not  the  whole,  of  the  last  two-thirds  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  thus  including  the  dates  of 
both  parts  of  the  Rose  within  it.  The  tendencies  of 
the  second  part  of  the  great  poem  appear  m  Ruteboeuf 
more  distinctly  than  those  of  the  earlier,  though,  like 
both,  his  work  shows  the  firm  grip  which  allegory  was 
exercising  on  all  poetry,  and  indeed  on  all  literature. 
He  has  been  already  referred  to  as  having  written  an 
outlying  "  branch  "  of  Renart ;  and  not  a  few  of  his 
other  poems — Le  Bit  des  Cordeliers,  Frdre  Denise,  and 
others  —  are  of  the  class  of  the  Fabliaux:  indeed 
Euteboeuf  may  be  taken  as  the  type  and  chief  figure 
to  us  of  the  whole  body  of  fabliau-writing  frouvdres. 
Besides  the  marriage  poem,  we  have  others  on  his 
personal  affairs,  the  chief  of  which  is  speakingly 
entitled  "  La  Pauvrete  Ruteboeuf."  But  he  has  been 
even  more,  and  even  more  justly,  prized  as  having  left 

1  Ed.  Jubiual,  2d  ed.j  Paris,  1874  ;  or  ed.  Kressner;  Wolfenbiittel. 
1885. 


THE  'fox;  the  'kose/  etc.  313 

us  no  small  number  of  historical  or  political  poems, 
not  a  few  of  which  are  occupied  with  the  decay  of  the 
crusading  spirit.  The  "  Complainte  d'Outremer,"  the 
"  Complainte  de  Constantinoble,"  the  "  Debat  du 
Croise  et  du  Decroise  "  tell  their  own  tale,  and  contain 
generous,  if  perhaps  not  very  long-sighted  or  practical, 
laments  and  indignation  over  the  decadence  of  adven- 
turous piety.  Others  are  less  religious ;  but.  on  the 
whole.  Euteboeuf,  even  in  his  wilder  days,  seems  to  have 
been  (except  for  that  dislike  of  the  friars,  in  which  he 
was  not  alone)  a  religiously  minded  person,  and  we  have 
a  large  body  of  poems,  assigned  to  his  later  years,  which 
are  distinctly  devotional.  These  deal  with  his  repent- 
ance, with  his  approaching  death,  with  divers  Lives  of 
Saints,  &c.  But  the  most  noteworthy  of  them,  as  a 
fresh  strand  in  the  rope  we  are  here  weaving,  is  the 
Miracle-play  of  Thdopliile.  It  will  serve  as  a  text  or 
starting-point  on  which  to  take  up  the  subject  of  the 
drama  itself,  with  no  more  about  Euteboeuf  except  the 
observation  that  the  varied  character  of  his  work  is  no 
doubt  typical  of  that  of  at  least  the  later  tronvhxs- 
generally.  They  were  practically  men  of  letters,  not 
to  say  journalists,  of  all  work  that  was  likely  to  pay  ; 
and  must  have  shifted  from  romance  to  drama,  from 
satire  to  lyric,  just  as  their  audience  or  their  patrons 
might  happen  to  demand,  as  their  circumstances  or 
their  needs  might  happen  to  dictate. 

The  obscure  but  not  uninteresting  subject  of  the 
links  between  the  latest  stages  of  classical 

Drama  ^  n  i  •  i 

drama  and  the  earliest  stages  oi  mediaeval 
belong  to  the  first  volume  of  this  series ;  indeed  by 


314  EUKOPEAN   LITEIIATUIIE,    1100-1300. 

the  eleventh  century  (or  before  the  period,  properly 
speaking,  of  this  book  opens)  the  vernacular  drama,  as 
far  as  the  sacred  side  of  it  is  concerned,  was  certainly 
established  in  France,  although  not  in  any  otlier  coun- 
try. But  it  is  not  quite  certain  whether  we  actually 
possess  anything  earlier  than  the  twelfth  century,  even 
in  French,  and  it  is  exceedingly  doubtful  whether  what 
we  have  in  any  other  vernacular  is  older  than  the  four- 
teenth. The  three  oldest  mystery  plays  wherein  any 
modern  language  makes  its  appearance  are  those  of  The 
Ten  Virgins^  mainly  in  Latin,  but  partly  in  a  dialect 
which  is  neither  quite  French  nor  quite  Provencal ;  the 
]\Iystery  of  Daniel,  partly  Latin  and  partly  French  ; 
and  the  Mystery  of  Aclam^  which  is  all  French.  The 
two  latter,  when  first  discovered,  were  as  usual  put  too 
early  by  their  discoverers ;  but  it  is  certain  that  they 
are  not  younger  than  the  twelfth  century,  while  it  is 
all  but  certain  that  the  Ten  Virgins  dates  from  the 
eleventh,  if  not  even  the  tenth.  In  the  thirteenth  we 
find,  besides  Euteboeuf's  Tlidoiohile,  a  Saint  Nicolas  by 
another  very  well-known  trouvere,  Jean  Bodel  of  Arras, 
author  of  many  late  and  probably  rehandled  ehaiisons, 
and  of  the  famous  classification  of  romance  which  has 
been  adopted  above. 

It  was  probably  on  the  well-known  principle  of 
"  not  letting  the  devil  have  all  the  best  tunes "  that 
the  Church,  which  had  in  the  patristic  ages   so  vio- 

^  Ed.  Monmerque  et  Michel,  Thtdtrc  Frunrais  au  Moyen  A'jc.  Paris, 
1874.  This  also  contains  Theophilc,  Saint  Nicolas,  and  the  plays  of 
Adam  de  la  Halle. 

"  Ed.  Luzarches,  Tours,  1854  ;  ed.  Palustre,  Paris,  1877. 


THE    'FOX,'    THE    '  ItOSE,'    ETC.  315 

lently  denounced  the  stage,  and  which  has  never 
wholly  relaxed  her  condemnation  of  its  secular  use, 
attempted  at  once  to  gratify  and  sanctify  the  taste  for 
dramatic  performances  by  adopting  the  form,  and  if 
possible  confining  it  to  pious  uses.  But  there  is  a 
school  of  literary  historians  who  hold  that  there  was 
no  direct  adoption  of  a  form  intentionally  dramatic, 
and  that  the  modern  sacred  drama — the  only  drama 
for  centuries  —  was  simply  an  expansion  of  or  ex- 
crescence from  the  services  of  the  Church  herself, 
which  in  their  antiphonal  character,  and  in  the  alter- 
nation of  monologue  and  chorus,  were  distinctly  dra- 
matic in  form.  This,  however,  is  one  of  those  numerous 
questions  which  are  only  good  to  be  argued,  and  can 
never  reach  a  conclusion  ;  nor  need  it  greatly  trouble 
those  who  believe  that  all  literary  forms  are  more  or 
less  natural  to  man,  and  that  man's  nature  will  there- 
fore, example  or  no  example,  find  them  out  and  practise 
them,  in  measure  and  degree  according  to  circumstances, 
sooner  or  later. 

At  any  rate,  if  there  was  any  hope  in  the  mind  of 
any  ecclesiastical  person  at  any  time  of  confining  dra- 
matic performances  to  sacred  subjects,  tliat  hope  was 
doomed  to  disappointment,  and  in  France  at  least  to 
very  speedy  disappointment.  The  examples  of  ]\Iystery 
or  Miracle  plays  which  we  have  of  a  date  older  than 
the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  are  not  numer- 
ous, but  it  is  quite  clear  that  at  an  early  time  the  neces- 
sity for  interspersing  comic  interludes  was  recognised ; 
and  it  is  needless  to  say  to  any  one  who  has  ever  looked 
even  slightly  at  the  subject  that  tliese  interludes  soon 


316  EUKOPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

became  a  regular  part  of  the  performance,  and  exhibited 
what  to  modern  ideas  seems  a  very  indecorous  disregard 
of  the  respect  due  to  the  company  in  which  they  found 
themselves.  The  great  Bible  mysteries,  no  less  and  no 
more  than  the  miracle  plays  of  the  Virgin  ^  and  the 
Saints,  show  this  characteristic  throughout,  and  the 
Fool's  remark  which  pleased  Lamb,  "Hazy  weather, 
Master  ISToah ! ''  was  a  strictly  legitimate  and  very 
much  softened  descendant  of  the  kind  of  pleasantries 
which  diversify  the  sacred  drama  of  the  Middle  Ages 
in  all  but  its  very  earliest  examples. 

It  was  certain,  at  any  rate  in  France,  that  from 
comic  interludes  in  sacred  plays  to  sheer  profane 
comedy  in  ordinary  life  the  step  would  not  be  far 
nor  the  interval  of  time  long.  The  fabliaux  more  par- 
ticularly were  farces  already  in  the  state  of  scenario, 
and  some  of  them  actually  contained  dialogue.  To 
break  them  up  and  shape  them  into  actual  plays 
required  much  less  than  the  innate  love  for  drama 
which  characterises  the  French  people,  and  the  keen 
literary  sense  and  craft  which  characterised  the  French 
trouveres  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

The  honour  of  producing  the  first  examples  known 

Adam  dc  la     to  US  is  assigucd  to  Adam  de  la  Halle,  a 

Halle.  trouvere  of  Arras,  who  must  have  been  a 

pretty  exact  contemporary  of  Euteboeuf,  and  who  be- 


^  Several  of  these  miracles  of  the  Virgin  will  be  found  in  the  volume 
by  Monmerque  and  Michel  referred  to  above :  the  whole  collection 
has  been  printed  by  the  Society  des  Anciens  Testes.  The  MS.  is  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  but  some  of  its  contents  may  date  from  the 
thirteenth. 


THE   'FOX,'   THE   'ROSE,'   ETC.  317 

sides  some  lyrical  work  has  left  us  two  plays,  Li 
Jus  de  la  Feuillie  and  RoMn  et  Marion}  The  latter, 
as  its  title  almost  sufficiently  indicates,  is  a  dramatised 
pastourelle  ;  the  former  is  less  easy  to  classify,  but  it 
stands  in  something  like  the  same  relation  to  the  per- 
sonal poems,  of  which,  as  has  just  been  mentioned  in 
the  case  of  Ruteba^uf  himself,  the  trotcvhxs  were  so 
fond.  For  it  introduces  himself,  his  wife  (at  least 
she  is  referred  to),  his  father,  and  divers  of  his  Arras 
friends.  And  though  rough  in  construction,  it  is  by  no 
means  a  very  far-off  ancestor  of  the  comedy  of  man- 
ners in  its  most  developed  form. 

It  may  be  more  interesting  to  give  some  account 
here  of  these  two  productions,  the  parents  of  so 
Robin  et  numerous  and  famous  a  family,  than  to 
Marion.  (jwcll  on  the  early  miracle  plays,  which 
reached  their  fullest  development  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries,  and  then  for  the  most  part 
died  away.  The  play  {Jm  is  the  general  term,  and 
the  exact,  though  now  in  French  obsolete,  equivalent 
of  the  English  word)  of  Bohi^i  et  Marion  combines 
the  general  theme  of  the  earlier  lyric  2^^'^^^ourGllc,  as 
explained  above^  with  the  more  general  pastoral 
theme  of  the  love  of  shepherd  and  shepherdess. 
The  scene  opens  on  Marion  singing  to  the  burden 
"  Robins  m'a  demandee,  si  m'ara,"  To  her  the  Knight, 
who  inquires  the  meaning  of  her  song,  whereupon  she 
avows  her  love  for  Robin.  Nevertheless  he  woos  her, 
in  a  fashion  rather  clumsy  than  cavalier,  but  receives 

1  Besides  the  issue  above  noted  these  hiive  been  separately  edited 
by  A.  Rambeau.     Marburg,  1886. 


318  ETTIJOPEAIT    LTTERATUEE,    1100-1300. 

no  eucouragenieiit.  Eobiii  comes  up  after  the  Knight's 
departure.  He  is,  to  use  Steerlbrth's  words  in  David 
Co]jperfidd,  "rather  a  chuckle-headed  fellow  for  the 
girl,"  but  is  apparently  welcome.  They  eat  rustic  fare 
together  and  then  dance ;  but  more  company  is  desired, 
and  liobin  goes  to  fetch  it.  He  tells  the  friends  he 
asks  that  some  one  has  been  courting  Marion,  and 
they  prudently  resolve  to  bring,  one  his  great  pitch- 
fork and  another  his  good  blackthorn.  Meanwhile  the 
Knight   returns,  and  though   Marion   replies   to   his 

accost — 

"  Pour  Dieu,  sire,  alez  vo  chemin, 
Si  feres  moult  grant  coi;rtoisie," 

he  renews  his  suit,  but  is  again  rejected.  Eeturning 
in  a  bad  temper  he  meets  Eobin  and  cuffs  him  soundly, 
a  correction  which  Eobin  does  not  take  in  the  heroic 
manner.  Marion  runs  to  rescue  him,  and  the  Knight 
threatens  to  carry  her  off — which  Eobin,  even  though 
his  friends  have  come  up,  is  too  cowardly  to  prevent. 
She,  however,  is  constant  and  escapes  ;  the  piece  finish- 
ing by  a  long  and  rather  tedious  festival  of  the  clowns. 
Its  drawbacks  are  obvious,  and  are  those  natural  to 
an  experiment  which  has  no  patterns  before  it ;  but 
the  figure  of  Marion  is  exceedingly  graceful  and  pleas- 
ing, and  the  whole  has  promise.  It  is  essentially  a 
comic  opera ;  but  that  a  trouvh^c  of  the  thirteenth 
century  should  by  himself,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  have 
founded  comic  opera  is  not  a  small  thing. 

The  Jus  dc  la  Feuillic  ("  the  booths"),  otherwise  Li 
Jus  Adam,  or  Adam's  play,  is  more  ambitious  and  more 
complicated,  but  also  more  chaotic.     It  is,  as  has  been 


THE    'FOX,'    THE    'ROSE,'    ETC.  319 

said,  an  early  sketch  of  a  comedy  of  manners ;  but 
r;iejeudeia  upon  tliis  is  grafted  in  the  most  curious 
Feuiiiie.  -^r^y  r^  fairy  interlude,  or  rather  after-piece. 

Adam  himself  opens  the  piece  and  informs  his  friends 
with  much  coolness  that  he  has  tried  married  life,  but 
intends  to  go  back  to  "  clergy "  and  then  set  out  for 
Paris,  leaving  his  father  to  take  care  of  his  wife.  He 
even  replies  to  the  neighbours'  remonstrances  by  en- 
larging in  the  most  glowing  terms  on  the  passion  he 
has  felt  for  his  wife  and  on  her  beauty,  adding,  with  a 
crude  brutality  which  has  hardly  a  ghost  of  atoning 
fun  in  it,  that  this  is  all  over — 

"  Car  mes  fains  en  est  apaies." 

His  father  then  appears,  and  Adam  shows  himself 
not  more  dutiful  as  a  son  than  he  is  grateful  as  a 
husband.  But  old  Henri  de  la  Halle,  an  easy-going 
father,  has  not  much  reproach  for  him.  The  piece, 
however,  has  hardly  begun  before  it  goes  off  into  a 
medley  of  unconnected  scenes,  though  each  has  a  sort 
of  fabliau  interest  of  its  own.  A  doctor  is  consulted 
by  his  clients ;  a  monk  demands  alms  and  offerings  in 
the  name  of  JMonseigneur  Saint  Acaire,  promising 
miracles ;  a  madman  succeeds  him ;  and  in  the  midst 
enters  the  Mainic  Hdlccjuin,  "troop  of  Hellequin" 
(a  sort  of  Oberon  or  fairy  king),  with  Morgue  la  fee 
among  them.  The  fairies  end  with  a  song,  and  the 
miscellaneous  conversation  of  the  men  of  Arras 
resumes  and  continues  for  some  time,  reaching,  in 
fact,  no  formal  termination. 

In  this  odd  piece,  which,  except  the  description  of 


320  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

Marie  the  deserted  wife,  has  little  poetical  merit,  we 
Comparison  of  s^e  drama  of  the  particular  kind  in  a  much 
them.  ruder   and  vaguer   condition   than  in  the 

parallel  instance  of  Robin  et  Marion.  There  the  very 
form  of  the  'pastourcllc  was  in  a  manner  dramatic — it 
wanted  little  adjustment  to  be  quite  so;  and  though 
the  coda  of  the  rustic  merry-making  is  rather  artless, 
it  is  conceivably  admissible.  Here  we  are  not  far  out 
of  Chaos  as  far  as  dramatic  arrangement  goes.  Adam's 
announced  desertion  of  his  wife  and  intended  journey 
to  Paris  lead  to  nothing :  the  episodes  or  scenes  of  the 
doctor  and  the  monk  are  connected  with  nothing ;  the 
fool  or  madman  and  his  father  are  equally  independent ; 
and  the  "  meyney  of  Hellequin  "  simply  play  within  the 
play,  not  without  rhyme,  but  certainly  with  very  little 
reason.  IsTevertheless  the  piece  is  almost  more  in- 
teresting than  the  comparatively  regular  farces  (into 
which  rather  later  the  fabliaux  necessarily  developed 
themselves)  and  than  the  miracle  plays  (which  were 
in  the  same  way  dramatic  versions  of  the  Lives  of  the 
Saints),  precisely  because  of  this  irregular  and  pillar-to- 
post  character.  We  see  that  the  author  is  trying  a  new 
kind,  that  he  is  endeavouring  to  create  for  himself.  He 
is  not  copying  anything  in  form ;  he  is  borrowing  very 
little  from  any  one  in  material.  He  has  endeavoured  to 
represent,  and  has  not  entirely  failed  in  representing,  the 
comings  and  goings,  the  ways  and  says,  of  his  townsmen 
at  fair  and  market.  The  curiously  desultory  character 
of  this  early  drama — the  character  hit  off  most  happily 
in  modern  times  by  Wallcnstcin^s  Lager  —  naturally 
appears  here  in  an  exaggerated  form.     But  the  root 


THE   'FOX,'   THE   '"ROSE,'    ETC.  321 

of  the  matter— the  construction  of  drama,  not  on  the 
model  of  Terence  or  of  anybody,  but  on  the  model  of 
life — is  here. 

It  will  be  for  my  successor  to  show  the  wide  exten- 
sion of  this  dramatic  form  in  the  succeeding  period. 
Here  it  takes  rank  rather  as  having  the  interest  of 
origins,  and  as  helping  to  fill  out  the  picture  of  the 
marvellously  various  ability  of  Frenchmen  of  letters 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  than  for  the  positive  bulk 
or  importance  of  its  constituents.  And  it  is  important 
to  repeat  that  it  connects  itself  in  the  general  literary 
survey  both  with  fabliau  and  with  allegory.  The 
personifying  taste,  which  bred  or  was  bred  from  alle- 
gory, is  very  close  akin  to  the  dramatic  taste,  and  the 
fabliau,  as  has  been  said  more  than  once,  is  a  farce  in 
the  making,  and  sometimes  far  advanced  towards  being 
completely  made. 

All  the  matter  hitherto  discussed  in  this  chapter, 
as   well   as  all  that  of   previous  chapters   as  far  as 
Earhj  French    Freucli  is  coucemcd,  with  the  probable  if 
prose.  j^Qf^   certain   exception    of    the   Arthurian 

romances,  has  been  in  verse.  Indeed — still  with  this 
exception,  and  with  the  further  and  more  certain 
exceptions  of  a  few  laws,  a  few  sermons,  &c. — there 
was  no  French  prose,  or  none  that  has  come  down 
to  us,  until  the  thirteenth  century.  The  Eomance 
tongues,  as  contradistinguished  from  Anglo-Saxon  and 
Icelandic,  were  slow  to  develop  vernacular  prose ;  the 
reason,  perhaps,  being  that  Latin,  of  one  kind  or 
another,  was  still  so  familiar  to  all  persons  of  any 
education  that,  for  purposes  of  instruction    and   use, 

X 


322  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

vernacular  prose  was  not  required,  while  verse  was 
more  agreeable  to  the  vulgar. 

Yet  it  was  inevitable  that  prose  should,  sooner  or 
later,  make  its  appearance ;  and  it  was  equally  in- 
iMws  and  evitable  that  spoken  prose  sermons  should 
sermons.  -[33  ^f  ^\^q  utmost  antiquity.  Indeed  such 
sermons  form,  by  reasonable  inference,  the  subject  of 
the  very  earliest  reference  ^  to  that  practically  lost 
lingua  romana  rustica  which  formed  the  bridge  be- 
tween Latin  and  the  Eomance  tongues.  But  they 
do  not  seem  to  have  been  written  down,  and  were 
no  doubt  extempore  addresses  rather  than  regular 
discourses.  Law  appears  to  have  had  the  start  of 
divinity  in  the  way  of  providing  formal  written 
prose ;  and  the  law  -  fever  of  the  Northmen,  which 
had  already  shaped,  or  was  soon  to  shape,  the  "  Gray- 
goose  "  code  of  their  northernmost  home  in  Iceland, 
expressed  itself  early  in  Normandy  and  England  — 
hardly  less  early  in  the  famous  Lettrcs  du  Sipulcrc 
or  Assises  do  Jerusalem,  the  code  of  the  Crusading 
kingdom,  which  was  drawn  up  almost  immediately 
after  its  establishment,  and  which  exists,  though  not 
in  the  very  oldest  form.  ]\Iuch  uncertainty  prevails 
on  the  question  when  the  first  sermons  in  French 
vernacular  were  formally  composed,  and  by  whom. 
It  has  been  maintained,  and  denied,  that  the  French 
sermons  of  St  Bernard  which  exist  are  original,  in 
which  case  the  practice  must  have  come  in  pretty  early 

^  The  often-quoted  statement  that  in  659  Mummolinus  or  Momo- 
lenus  was  made  Bishop  of  Noyon  because  of  his  double  skill  in 
"Teutonic"  and  "Roman"  (not  "Latin")  speech. 


THE   '  FOX,'    THE   '  ROSE,'   ETC.  323 

in  the  twelfth  century.  There  is,  at  any  rate,  no 
doubt  that  Maurice  de  Sully,  who  was  Archl)ishop  of 
Paris  for  more  than  thirty  years,  from  1160  onwards, 
composed  sermons  in  French ;  or  at  least  that  sermons 
of  his,  which  may  have  been  written  in  Latin,  were 
translated  into  French.  For  this  whole  point  of  early 
prose,  especially  on  theological  subjects,  is  compli- 
cated by  the  uncertainty  whether  the  French  forms 
are  original  or  not.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  feeling 
expressed  by  Ascham  in  England  nearly  four  centuries 
later,  that  it  would  have  been  for  himself  much  easier 
and  pleasanter  to  write  in  Latin,  must  at  the  earlier 
date  have  prevailed  far  more  extensively. 

Still  prose  made  its  way :  it  must  have  received  an 
immense  accession  of  vogue  if  the  prose  Arthurian 
romances  really  date  from  the  end  of  the  twelfth 
century  ;  and  by  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  it 
found  a  fresh  channel  in  which  to  flow,  the  channel 
of  historical  narrative.  The  earliest  French  chron- 
icles of  the  ordinary  compiling  kind  date  from  this 
time ;  and  (which  is  of  infinitely  greater  importance) 
it  is  from  this  time  (cir.  1210)  that  the  first  great 
French  prose  book,  from  the  literary  point,  appears 
— that  is  to  say,  the  Conquetc  de  Constantinoblc^  or 
history  of  the  Fourth  Crusade,  by  Geoffroy 

Villelmrdouin.  ,  .        .  __  n^, 

de  Villehardouin,  Marshal  of  Champagne 
and  Eomanie,  who  was  born  about  1160  in  the  first- 
named  province,  and  died  at  Messinople  in  Greece 
about  1213. 

This  deservedly  famous  and  thoroughly  delightful 

1  Ed.  Natalis  de  Wailly.     Paris,  1S72. 


324  EUROPEAN   LITEEATURE,    1100-1300. 

book,  which  has  more  than  one  contemporary  or 
slightly  younger  parallel,  though  none  of  these 
approaches  it  in  literary  interest,  presents  the  most 
striking  resemblance  to  a  chanson  de  geste — in  con- 
duct, arrangement  (the  paragraphs  representing 
laisses),  and  phraseology.  But  it  is  not,  as  some 
other  early  prose  is,  merely  verse  without  rhyme, 
and  with  broken  rhythm ;  and  it  is  impossible 
to  read  it  without  astonished  admiration  at  the 
excellence  of  the  medium  which  the  writer,  ap- 
parently by  instinct,  has  attained.  The  list  of  the 
crusaders  ;  their  embassy  to  "  li  dux  de  Venise  qui 
ot  h  nom  Henris  Dandolo  et  etait  mult  sages  et  mult 
prouz " ;  their  bargain,  in  which  the  business  -  like 
Venetian,  after  stipulating  for  85,000  marks  of 
transport-money,  agrees  to  add  fifty  armed  galleys 
without  hire,  for  the  love  of  God  and  on  the  terms 
of  half-conquests ;  the  death  of  the  Count  of  Cham- 
pagne (much  wept  by  Geoffroy  his  marshal) ;  and  the 
substitution  after  difficulties  of  Boniface,  Marquis 
of  Montserrat ;  —  these  things  form  the  prologue. 
When  the  army  is  actually  got  together  the  trans- 
port-money is  unfortunately  lacking,  and  the  Venetians, 
still  with  the  main  chance  steadily  before  them,  pro- 
pose that  the  crusaders  shall  recover  for  them,  from 
the  King  of  Hungary,  Zara,  "  Jadres  en  Esclavonie,  qui 
est  une  des  plus  forz  citez  du  monde."  Then  we  are 
told  how  Dandolo  and  his  host  take  the  cross ;  how 
Alexius  Comnenus,  the  younger  son  of  Isaac,  arrives 
and  begs  aid ;  how  the  fleet  set  out  ("  Ha !  Dex,  tant 
bon  destrier  i  ot  mis  1 ") ;  how  Zara  is  besieged  and 


THE   'FOX,'    THE   '  KOSE,'   ETC.  325 

taken  ;  of  the  pact  made  with  Alexius  to  divert  the 
host  to  Constantinople ;  of  the  voyage  thither  after 
the  Pope's  absolution  for  the  slightly  piratical  and 
not  in  the  least  crusading  prise  de  Jadres  has  been 
obtained ;  of  the  dissensions  and  desertions  at  Corfu, 
and  the  arrival  at  the  "  Bras  St  Georges,"  the  Sea 
of  Marmora.  This  is  what  may  be  called  the  second 
part. 

The  third  part  opens  with  debates  at  San  Stefano  as 
to  the  conduct  of  the  attack.  The  emperor  sends  soft 
words  to  "  la  meillor  gens  qui  soent  sanz  corone  "  (this 
is  the  description  of  the  chiefs),  but  they  reject  them, 
arrange  themselves  in  seven  battles,  storm  the  port, 
take  the  castle  of  Galata,  and  then  assault  the  city 
itself.  The  fighting  having  gone  wholly  against  him, 
the  emperor  retires  by  the  open  side  of  the  city,  and 
the  Latins  triumph.  Some  show  is  made  of  resuming, 
or  rather  beginning,  a  real  crusade ;  but  the  young 
Emperor  Alexius,  to  whom  his  blind  father  Isaac  has 
handed  over  the  thronC;  bids  them  stay,  and  they  do 
so.  Soon  dissensions  arise,  war  breaks  out,  a  con- 
spiracy is  formed  against  Isaac  and  his  son  by  ]\Iour- 
zufle,  "  et  Murchufies  chauga  les  houses  vennoilles," 
quickly  putting  the  former  owners  of  the  scarlet  boots 
to  deathc  A  second  siege  and  capture  of  the  city 
follows,  and  Baldwin  of  Flanders  is  crowned  emperor, 
while  Boniface  marries  the  widow  of  Isaac,  and  re- 
ceives the  kingdom  of  Salonica. 

It  has  seemed  worth  while  to  give  this  abstract  of 
the  book  up  to  a  certain  point  (there  is  a  good  deal 
more  of  confused  fighting  in  "  Itomanie  "  before,  at  the 


326  EUROPEAN   LITEUATURE,    1100-1300. 

death  of  Boniface,  Villehardouiii  gives  up  the  pen  to 
Henri  of  Valenciennes),  because  even  such  a  bare  argu- 
ment may  show  the  masterly  fashion  in  which  this 
first  of  modern  vernacular  historians  of  the  great 
literary  line  handles  his  subject.  The  parts  are 
planned  with  judgment  and  adjusted  with  skill;  the 
length  allotted  to  each  incident  is  just  enough;  the 
speeches,  though  not  omitted,  are  not  inserted  at  the 
tyrannous  length  in  which  later  medioeval  and  even 
Eenaissance  historians  indulged  from  corrupt  follow- 
ing of  the  ancients.  But  no  abstract  could  show- — 
though  the  few  scraps  of  actual  phrase  purposely  in- 
serted may  convey  glimpses  of  it — the  vigour  and 
picturesqueness  of  the  recital.  That  Villehardouin 
was  an  eyewitness  explains  a  little,  but  very  little: 
we  have,  unfortunately,  libraries  full  of  eyewitness- 
histories  which  are  duller  than  any  ditch-water.  JSTor, 
though  he  is  by  no  means  shy  of  mentioning  his  own 
performances,  does  he  communicate  to  the  story  that 
slightly  egotistic  interest  of  gossip  and  personal  detail 
of  which  his  next  great  successor  is  perhaps  the  first 
example.  It  is  because,  while  writing  a  rather  rugged 
but  completely  genuine  and  unmetrical  though  rhyth- 
mical prose,  Villehardouin  has  the  poet's  eye  and  grasp 
that  he  sees,  and  therefore  makes  us  see,  the  events 
that  he  relates.  These  events  do  not  form  exactly  the 
most  creditable  chapter  of  modern  history ;  for  they 
simply  come  to  this,  that  an  army  assembling  for  a 
crusade  against  the  infidel,  allows  itself  to  be  bribed 
or  wheedled  into  two  successive  attacks  on  two  Chris- 
tian princes  who  have  given  it  not  the  slightest  pro- 


THE    '  FOX,'    THE    '  KOSE/    ETC.  327 

vocation,  never  attacks  the  intidel  at  all,  and  ends 
by  a  filibustering  seizure  of  already  Christian  terri- 
tory. Nor  does  Villehardouin  make  any  elaborate 
disguise  of  this ;  but  he  tells  the  tale  with  such  a 
gust,  such  a  fiiria,  that  we  are  really  as  much  in- 
terested in  the  success  of  this  private  piracy  as  if 
it  had  been  the  true  crusade  of  Godfrey  of  Bouillon 
himself. 

The  earlier  and  more  legitimate  crusades  did  not 
lack    fitting    chroniclers    in    the    same    style,    though 
William  of    Hone  of  them  had  the  genius  of  Villehar- 
Tyre.  douin.     The  Roman  cVEradcs  (as  tlie  early 

vernacular  version  ^  of  the  Latin  chronicle  of  William 
of  Tyre  used  to  be  called,  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  the  first  line  runs,  "  Les  anciennes  histoires  dient 
qu'Eracles  [Heraclius]  qui  fu  mout  bons  crestiens 
gouverua  I'empire  de  Kome ")  is  a  chronicle  the 
earlier  part  of  which  is  assigned  to  a  certain  Bernard, 
treasurer  of  the  Abbey  of  Corbie.  It  is  a  very  ex- 
tensive relation,  carrying  the  history  of  Latin  Palestine 
from  Peter  the  Hermit's  pilgrimage  to  about  the  year 
1190,  composed  probably  within  ten  or  fifteen  years 
after  this  later  date,  and  written,  though  hot  with 
Villehardouin's  epic  spirit,  in  a  very  agreeable  and 
readable  fashion.  Not  much  later,  vernacular  chron- 
icles of  profane  history  in  France  became  common, 
and  the  celebrated  Grandcs  Chroniques  of  St  Denis 
began  to  be  composed  in  French.  But  the  only  pro- 
duction of  this  thirteenth  century  which  has  taken 
rank  in  general  literary  knowledge  with  the  work  of 

1  Ed.  Taulin  Paris.     Paris,  1879. 


328  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE.    1100-1300. 

the  Marshal  of  Champagne  is  that  ^  of  Jean  de  Join- 
ville,  also  a  Champenois  and  Seneschal  of 

JoinviUc. 

the  province,  who  was  born  about  ten  years 
after  Villehardouin's  death,  and  who  died,  after  a  life 
prolonged  to  not  many  short  of  a  hundred  years,  in 
1319.  Joinville's  historical  work  seems  to  have  been 
the  occupation  of  his  old  age ;  but  its  subject,  the  Life 
and  Crusadin"  misfortunes  of  Saint  Louis,  beloncfs  to 
the  experiences  of  his  youth  and  early  middle  life. 
Besides  the  Histoire  de  Saint  Louis,  we  have  from  him 
a  long  Credo  or  profession  of  religious  faith. 

There  is  no  reason  at  all  to  question  the  sincerity  of 
this  faith.  But  Joinville  was  a  shrewd  and  practical 
man,  and  when  the  kings  of  France  and  Navarre 
pressed  him  to  take  the  cross  a  second  time,  he 
answered  that  their  majesties'  servants  had  during 
his  first  absence  done  him  and  his  people  so  much 
harm  that  he  thought  he  had  better  not  go  away 
again.  Indeed  it  would  be  displeasing  to  God,  "  qui 
mit  son  corps  pour  son  peuple  sauver,"  if  he,  Joinville, 
abandoned  liis  people.  And  he  reports  only  in  the 
briefest  abstract  the  luckless  "  voie  de  Tunes,"  or  ex- 
pedition to  Tunis.  But  of  the  earlier  and  not  much 
less  unlucky  Damietta  crusade,  in  which  he  took  part, 
as  well  as  of  his  hero's  life  till  all  but  the  last,  he  has 
written  very  fully,  and  in  a  fashion  which  is  very  in- 
teresting, though  unluckily  we  have  no  manuscript 
representing  the  original  text,  or  even  near  to  it  in 
point  of  time.  The  book,  which  has  been  thought  to 
have  been   written  in  pieces  at  long   intervals,  has 

1  Ed.  Xatalis  de  M'aiUy.      Paris,  1874. 


THE  'fox/  the  'rose/  ETC.         329 

nothing  of  the  antique  vigour  of  Villehardouin.  Join- 
ville  is  something  of  a  gossip,  and  though  he  evidently 
writes  with  a  definite  literary  purpose,  is  not  master 
of  very  great  argumentative  powers.  But  for  this 
same  reason  he  abounds  in  anecdote,  and  in  the  per- 
sonal detail  which,  though  it  may  easily  be  overdone, 
is  undoubtedly  now  and  then  precious  for  the  purpose 
of  enabling  us  to  conjure  up  the  things  and  men  of  old 
time  more  fully  and  correctly.  And  there  is  a  Pepys- 
ian  garrulity  as  well  as  a  Pepysian  shrewdness  about 
Joinville ;  so  that,  on  the  whole,  he  fills  the  position 
of  ancestor  in  the  second  group  of  historians,  the  group 
of  lively  raconteurs,  as  well  as  Villehardouin  leads  that 
of  inspired  describers.  For  an  instance  of  the  third 
kind,  the  philosophical  historian.  Prance,  if  not 
Europe,  had  to  wait  two  centuries,  when  such  a  one 
came  in  Comines. 

It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  say  that  when  the  secret 
of  producing  prose  and  its  advantages  over  verse  for 
certain  purposes  had  been  discovered,  it  was  freely 
employed  for  all  such  purposes,  scientific  as  science 
was  understood,  devotional,  instructive,  business  (the 
Livre  des  Mesticrs,  or  book  of  the  guilds  of  Paris,  is  of 
the  thirteenth  century),  and  miscellaneous.  But  few 
of  these  things  concern  literature  proper.  It  is  other- 
wise with  the  application  of  prose  to  fiction. 

This,  as  we  have  seen,  had  probably  taken  place  in 

the  case  of  the  Arthurian  romances  as  early  as  the 

middle  of  our  period,  and  throughout  the 

Fiction.  ^  PIT 

thirteenth  century  prose  romances  of  length 
were  not  unknown,  though  it  was  later  that  uU  the 


330  EUKOPEAN   LITEKATUEE,    1100-1300. 

three  classes — Carlovingian,  Arthurian,  and  Antique — 
were  thrown  indiscriminately  into  prose,  and  lengthened 
even  beyond  the  huge  length  of  their  later  representa- 
tives in  verse.  But  for  this  reason  or  that,  romance 
in  prose  was  with  rare  exceptions  unfavourable  to  the 
production  of  the  best  literature.  It  encouraged  the 
prolixity  which  was  the  great  curse  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  the  deficient  sense  of  form  and  scanty 
presence  of  models  prevented  the  observance  of  any- 
thing like  a  proper  scheme. 

But  among  the  numerous  origins  of  this  wonderful 
time  the  origin  of  the  short  prose  tale,  in  which  France 
was  to  hold  almost  if  not  quite  the  highest  rank  among 
European  countries,  was  also  included.  It  would  not 
seem  that  the  kind  was  as  yet  very  frequently  at- 
tempted— the  fact  that  the  verse  fahliau  was  still  in 
the  very  height  of  its  flourishing-time,  made  this  un- 
likely ;  nor  was  it  till  that  flourishing-time  was  over 
that  farces  on  the  one  hand,  and  prose  tales  on  the 
other,  succeeded  as  fruit  the /aS/'icM^-flower.  But  it  is 
from  the  thirteenth  century  that  (with  some  others) 
Aucassin  et  wc  liavc  Aucossln  ct  Nicolcttc}  If  it  was 
Nicoiette.  £qj.  ^  short  time  rather  too  much  of  a 
fashion  to  praise  (it  cannot  be  over-praised)  this  ex- 
quisite story,  no  wise  man  will  allow  himself  to  be 
disgusted  any  more  than  he  will  allow  himself  to  be 

•'•  Frequently  edited :  not  least  satisfactorily  in  the  NouveUes 
Fran/^ai&es  du  XIII"^^  Sieclc,  referred  to  above.  In  1887  two  Eng- 
lish translations,  by  Mr  Lang  and  Mr  Bourdillon,  the  latter  with 
the  text  and  much  apparatus,  appeared  :  and  Mr  Bourdillon  has 
recently  edited  a  facsimile  of  the  unique  MS.  (Oxford,  1896) 


THE    'FOX,'    THE    'ROSE,'    ETC.  331 

attracted  by  fashion,  lliis  work  of  "  the  old  caitiff,"  as 
the  author  calls  himself  with  a  rather  Hibernian  coax- 
ingness,  is  what  has  been  called  a  cantcfaUc — that  is  to 
say,  it  is  not  only  obviously  written,  like  verse  romances 
and  fahliaux,  for  recitation,  but  it  consists  partly  of 
prose,  partly  of  verse,  the  music  for  the  latter  being 
also  given.  Mr  Swinburne,  Mr  Pater,  and,  most  of 
all,  Mr  Lang,  have  made  it  unnecessary  to  tell  in  any 
detailed  form  the  story  how  Aucassin,  the  son  of 
Count  Garin  of  Beaucaire,  fell  in  love  with  Nicolette, 
a  Saracen  captive,  who  has  been  bought  by  the 
Viscount  of  the  place  and  brought  up  as  his  daughter ; 
how  Nicolette  was  shut  up  in  a  tower  to  keep  her 
from  Aucassin  ;  how  Count  Bongars  of  Valence  assailed 
Beaucaire  and  was  captured  by  Aucassin  on  the  faith 
of  a  promise  from  his  father  that  Nicolette  shall  be 
restored  to  him ;  how  the  Count  broke  his  word,  and 
Aucassin,  setting  his  prisoner  free,  was  put  in  prison 
himself;  how  Nicolette  escaped,  and  by  her  device 
Aucassin  also ;  how  the  lovers  were  united ;  and  how, 
after  a  comic  interlude  in  the  country  of  "  Torelore," 
which  could  be  spared  by  all  but  folk-lorists,  the 
damsel  is  discovered  to  be  daughter  of  the  King  of 
Carthage,  and  all  ends  in  bowers  of  bliss. 

But  even  the  enthusiasm  and  the  art  of  three  of  the 
best  writers  of  English  and  lovers  of  literature  in  this 
half-century  have  not  exhausted  the  wonderful  charm  of 
this  little  piece.  The  famous  description  of  Nicolette, 
as  she  escapes  from  her  prison  and  walks  through  the 
daisies  that  look  black  against  her  white  feet,  is  cer- 
tainly the  most  beautiful  thing  of  the  kind  in  mediieval 


332  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

prose-work,  and  the  equal  of  anything  of  the  kind  any- 
where. And  for  original  audacity  few  things  surpass 
Aucassin's  equally  famous  inquiry.  '  En  Paradis  qu'ai- 
je  a  faire  ? "  with  the  words  with  which  he  follows  it 
up  to  the  Viscount.  But  these  show  passages  only 
concentrate  the  charm  which  is  spread  all  over  the 
novelette,  at  least  until  its  real  conclusion,  the  union 
and  escape  of  the  lovers.  Here,  as  in  the  earlier  part 
of  the  Hose — to  which  it  is  closely  akin — is  the  full 
dreamy  beauty,  a  little  faint,  a  little  shadowy,  but  all 
the  more  attractive,  of  medieval  art ;  and  here  it  has 
managed  to  convey  itself  in  prose  no  less  happily  and 
with  more  concentrated  happiness  than  there  in  verse. 


333 


CHAPTER    VITT. 


ICELANDIC  AND  PEOVENCAL. 

RESEMBLANCES  —  CONTRASTS  —  ICELANDIC  LITERATURE  OP  THIS  TIME 
MAINLY  PROSE — DIFFICULTIES  WITH  IT— THE  SAGA ITS  INSULAR- 
ITY  OF  MANNER OF   SCENERY   AND  CHARACTER — FACT  AND   FICTION 

IN    THE    SAGAS CLASSES    AND    AUTHORSHIP    OP    THEM THE    FIVE 

GREATER     SAGAS — *  NJALA  ' '  LAXD^LA  ' '  EYRBYGGJA  ' '  EGLA  ' 

'GRETTLa' ITS     CRITICS MERITS     OF    IT — THE    PARTING    OP    ASDIS 

AND    HER    SONS  —  GREAT    PASSAGES   OP   THE    SAGAS  —  STYLE  —  PRO- 

VENQAL    MAINLY    LYRIC ORIGIN    OP    THIS    LYRIC FORMS MANY 

JfEN,  ONE  MIND — EXAMPLE  OF  RHYME-SCHEMES — PROVENCAL  POETRY 

NOT     GREAT BUT     EXTRAORDINARILY     PEDAGOGIC THOUGH     NOT 

DIRECTLY    ON    ENGLISH SOME    TROUBADOURS CRITICISM    OP    PHO- 

VENgAL. 

There  may  seem  at  first  to  be  no  sufficient  reason  for 

treating  together  two  such  literatures  as  those  named 

in  the  title  of  this  chapter.     But  the  con- 

Resemblances.  .  ,,  n     ft  i  T^ 

nection,  both  or  likeness  and  unhkeness, 
between  them  is  too  tempting  to  the  student  of  com- 
parative literature,  and  too  useful  in  such  a  compara- 
tive survey  of  literature  as  that  which  we  are  here  un- 
dertaking, to  be  mistaken  or  refused.  Both  attaining, 
thanks  to  very  different  causes,  an  extraordinarily  early 
maturity,  completely  worked    themselves   out   in  an 


334  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

extraordinarily  short  time.  Neither  had,  so  far  as  we 
know,  the  least  assistance  from  antecedent  vernacular 
models.  Each  achieved  an  extraordinary  perfection 
and  intensity,  Icelandic  in  spirit,  Proven(^al  in  form. 
And  their  differences  are  no  less  fascinating,  since 
they  start  from  this  very  diversity  of  similar  perfection. 
Icelandic,  after  a  brief  period  of  copying 

Contnista.  ,  iii  •       -ii       t     i 

iTench  and  other  languages,  practically  died 
out  as  a  language  producing  literature ;  and,  perhaps 
for  that  very  reason,  maintained  itself  in  all  the  more 
continuity  as  a  spoken  language.  Even  its  daughter 
— or  at  least  successor — Norse  tongues  produced  no- 
thing worthy  to  take  up  the  tradition  of  the  Sagas 
and  the  Poems.  It  influenced  (till  the  late  and  purely 
literary  revival  of  it  biassed  to  some  extent  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  later  Eomantic  revival  in  Western 
Europe,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago)  nothing  and 
nobody.  It  was  as  isolated  as  its  own  island.  To 
Provencal,  on  the  other  hand,  though  its  own  actual 
producing-time  was  about  as  brief,  belongs  the  school- 
ing, to  no  small  extent,  of  the  whole  literature  of 
Europe.  Directly,  it  taught  the  trouvdres  of  Northern 
France  and  the  poets  of  Spain  and  Italy  prosody,  and 
a  certain  amount  of  poetical  style  and  tone  ;  indirectly, 
or  directly  through  France,  it  influenced  England  and 
Germany.  It  started,  indeed,  none  of  the  greater 
poetical  kinds  except  lyric,  and  lyric  is  the  true  grass 
of  Parnassus  —  it  springs  up  naturally  everywhere ; 
but  it  started  the  form  of  all,  or  at  least  was  the  first 
to  adapt  from  Latin  a  prosody  suitable  to  all. 

The  most  obvious,  though  not  the  least  interesting, 


ICELANDIC  AND  PROVENCAL.  335 

points  of  likeness  in  unlikeness  have  been  left  to  the 
last.  The  contrasts  between  the  hawthorn  and  ni"[ht- 
ingale  of  Provence,  her  "  winds  heavy  with  the  rose," 
and  the  grey  firths,  the  ice-  and  foam-fretted  skerries  of 
Iceland  ;  between  the  remains  of  Eoman  luxury  pushed 
to  more  than  Eoman  effeminacy  in  the  one,  and  the 
rough  Germanic  virtue  exasperated  to  sheer  ferocity  in 
the  other, — are  almost  too  glaring  for  anything  but  a 
schoolboy's  or  a  rhetorician's  essay.  Yet  they  are  re- 
produced with  an  incredible — a  "  copy-book  " — fidelity 
in  the  literatures.  The  insistence  of  experts  and  en- 
thusiasts on  the  law  -  abiding  character  of  the  sagas 
has  naturally  met  with  some  surprise  from  readers  of 
these  endless  private  wars,  and  burnings,  and  "  heath- 
slayings,"  these  feuds  where  blood  flows  like  water, 
to  be  compensated  by  fines  as  regular  as  a  water-rate, 
these  methodical  assassinations,  in  which  it  is  not  in 
the  least  discreditable  to  heroes  to  mob  heroes  as 
brave  as  themselves  to  death  by  numbers,  in  whi-ch 
nobody  dreams  of  measuring  swords,  or  avoiding  van- 
tage of  any  kind.  Yet  the  enthusiastic  experts  are 
not  wrong.  Whatever  outrages  the  Icelander  may 
commit,  he  always  has  the  law  —  an  eccentric,  un- 
modern,  conventional  law,  but  a  real  and  recognised 
one — before  his  eyes,  and  respects  it  in  principle,  how- 
ever much  he  may  sometimes  violate  it  in  practice. 
To  the  Provencal,  on  the  other  hand,  law,  as  such, 
is  a  nuisance.  He  will  violate  it,  so  to  speak,  on 
principle — less  because  the  particular  violation  has  a 
particular  temptation  for  him  than  because  the  thing 
is  forbidden.     The  Icelander  may  covet  and  take  an- 


330  EUKOPEAX   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

other  man's  wife,  but  it  is  to  make  her  his  own.  The 
Provencal  will  hardly  fall,  and  will  never  stay,  in 
love  with  any  one  who  is  not  another's.  In  savagery 
there  is  not  so  very  much  to  choose :  it  requires  a 
calculus,  not  of  morals  but  of  raanners,  to  distinguish 
accurately  between  carving  the  blood -eagle  on  your 
enemy  and  serving  up  your  rival's  heart  as  a  dish 
to  his  mistress.  In  passion  also  there  may  be  less 
difference  than  the  extreme  advocates  of  both  sides 
would  maintain.  But  in  all  things  external  the  con- 
trast, the  hackneyed  contrast,  of  South  and  Xorth 
never  could  have  been  exhibited  with  a  more  artistic 
completeness,  never  has  been  exhibited  with  a  com- 
pleteness so  artistic.  And  these  two  contrasting  parts 
were  played  at  the  very  same  time  at  the  two  ends  of 
Europe.  In  the  very  same  years  when  the  domestic 
histories  and  tragedies  (there  were  few  comedies)  of 
Iceland  were  being  spun  into  the  five  great  sagas  and 
the  fifty  smaller  ones,  the  fainter,  the  more  formal, 
but  the  not  less  peculiar  music  of  the  gracious  long- 
drawn  Provencal  love-song  was  sounding  under  the 
vines  and  olives  of  Languedoc.  The  very  Iceland- 
ers who  sailed  to  Constantinople  in  the  intervals  of 
making  the  subjects  of  these  sagas,  and  sometimes  of 
composing  them,  must  not  seldom  have  passed  or 
landed  on  the  coasts  where  cansos  and  tensos,  lai 
and  sirvente,  were  being  woven,  and  have  listened  to 
them  as  the  Ulyssean  mariners  listened  to  the  songs 
of  the  sirens. 

It  is  not,  of  course,  true  that  Provencal  only  sings 
of  love  and  Icelandic  only  of  war.     There  is   a   fair 


ICEL.VNDIC   AND    PROVENCAL.  337 

amount  of  love  in  the  Northern  literature  and  a  fair 

icaanaicutcra.  ';^"^°""t  ^^  ^^'^^l^ing  "^  ^^^^  Southcm,  And 
ture  of  this  time  it  is  not  true  that  Icelandic  literature  is 
viamy prose.  ^\^q\\j  pj-Qse,  ProveuQal  wholly  poetry. 
But  it  is  true  that  rroven(^al  prose  plays  an  extremely 
small  part  in  Provencal  literature,  and  that  Icelandic 
poetry  plays,  in  larger  minority,  yet  still  a  minor  part 
in  Icelandic.  It  so  happens,  too,  that  in  this  volume 
we  are  almost  wholly  concerned  with  Icelandic  prose, 
and  that  we  shall  not  find  it  necessary  to  say  much,  if 
anything,  about  Provengal  that  is  not  in  verse.  It  is 
distinctly  curious  how  much  later,  cceteris  paribus,  the 
Romance  tongues  are  than  the  Teutonic  in  attaining 
facilities  of  prose  expression.  But  there  is  no  reason 
for  believing  that  even  the  Teutonic  tongues  falsified 
the  general  law  that  poetry  comes  before  prose.  And 
certainly  this  was  the  case  with  Icelandic — so  nuich 
so  that,  uncertain  as  are  the  actual  dates,  it  seems 
better  to  relinquish  the  Iceland  of  poetry  to  the  first 
volume  of  this  series,  where  it  can  be  handled  in  con- 
nection with  that  Anglo-Saxon  verse  which  it  so  much 
resembles.  The  more  characteristic  Eddaic  poems — 
that  is  to  say,  the  most  characteristic  parts  of  Icelandic 
poetry — must  date  from  Heathen  times,  or  from  the 
first  conflicts  of  Christianity  with  Heathenism  in  Ice- 
land; and  this  leaves  them  far  behind  us.'^  On  the 
other  hand,  the  work  which  we  have  in  Provencal  be- 
fore the  extreme  end  of  the  eleventh  century  is  not 
finished  literature.  It  has  linguistic  interest,  the  in- 
terest of  origins,  but  no  more. 

'   Iceland  began  to  be  r!hristia)i  in  1000 
Y 


338  EUr.OPEAN   LITEEATUEE,    1100-1300. 

Although  there  is  practically  as  little  doubt  about 
the  antiquity  of  Icelandic  literature  ^  as  about  its 
Difficulties  interest,  there  is  unusual  room  for  guess- 
withit.  work  as  to  the  exact  dates  of  the  docu- 
ments which  compose  it.  Writing  seems  to  have 
been  introduced  into  Iceland  late ;  and  it  is  not  the 
opinion  of  scholars  who  combine  learning  with  patri- 
otism that  many,  if  any,  of  the  actual  MSS.  date 
further  back  than  the  thirteenth  century ;  while  the 
actual  composition  of  the  oldest  that  we  have  is  not 
put  earlier  than  the  twelfth,  and  rather  its  later  than 
its  earlier  part.  Moreover,  though  Icelanders  were 
during  this  period,  and  indeed  from  the  very  first 
settlement  of  the  island,  constantly  in  foreign  coun- 
tries and  at  foreign  courts  —  though  as  Vikings  or 
Varangians,  as  merchants  or  merely  travelling  adven- 
turers, they  were  to  be  found  all  over  Europe,  from 
Dublin  to  Constantinople  —  yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
few  or  no  foreigners  visited  Iceland,  and  it  figures 
hardly  at  all  in  the  literary  and  historical  records  of 
the  Continent  or  even  of  the  British  Isles,  with  which 

^  It  is  almost  superfluous  to  insert,  but  would  be  disagreeable  to 
omit,  a  reference  to  the  Sturlunfja  Saga  (2  vols.,  Oxford,  1879)  and 
the  Corpus  Foeticum  Boreale  (2  vols.,  Oxford,  1883)  of  the  late  Dr 
Vigfusson  and  Professor  York  Powell.  The  first  contains  an  invalu- 
able sketch,  or  rather  history,  of  Icelandic  literature  :  the  second 
(though  one  may  think  its  arrangement  a  little  arbitrary)  is  a  book 
of  unique  value  and  interest.  Had  these  two  been  followed  up  ac- 
cording to  Dr  Vigfusson's  plan,  practically  the  whole  of  Icelandic  lit- 
erature that  has  real  interest  would  have  been  accessible  once  for  all. 
As  it  is,  one  is  divided  between  satisfaction  that  England  should  have 
done  such  a  service  to  one  of  the  great  mediaeval  literatures,  and  re- 
gret that  she  has  not  done  as  much  for  others. 


ICELANDIC   AND    Pr.OVENf'AL.  339 

it  naturally  liad  most  correspondence.  We  are  there- 
fore almost  entirely  devoid  of  tliose  side-lights  which 
are  so  invaluable  in  general  literary  history,  while  yet 
again  we  have  no  borrowings  from  Icelandic  literature 
by  any  other  to  tell  us  the  date  of  the  borrowed  mat- 
ter. At  the  end  of  our  present  time,  and  still  more  a 
little  later,  Charlemagne  and  Arthur  and  the  romances 
of  antiquity  make  their  appearance  in  Icelandic;  but 
nothing  Icelandic  makes  its  appearance  elsewhere. 
For  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  for  one  moment  that 
the  Niheluiigenlied,  for  instance,  is  the  work  of  men 
who  wrote  with  the  Volsunga-Saga  or  the  Grudrun  lays 
before  them,  any  more  than  the  Grettis  Saga  is  made 
up  out  of  Beovmlf.  These  things  are  mere  examples 
of  the  successive  refashionings  of  traditions  and  stories 
common  to  the  race  in  different  centuries,  manners, 
and  tongues.  Except  as  to  the  bare  fact  of  commun- 
ity of  origin  they  help  us  little  or  not  at  all. 

Tlie  reasons  why  Icelandic  literature,  in  its  most 
peculiar  and  interesting  form  of  the  saga,  did  not 
penetrate  abroad  are  clear  enough ;  and 
the  remoteness  and  want  of  school-educa- 
tion in  the  island  itself  are  by  no  means  the  most 
powerful  of  them.  The  very  thing  which  is  most 
characteristic  of  them,  and  which  in  these  later  times 
constitutes  their  greatest  charm,  must  have  been 
against  them  in  their  own  time.  For  the  stories 
which  ran  like  an  epidemic  tln^ough  Europe  in  the 
years  immediately  before  and  innnediately  after  1200, 
though  tlicy  might  be  in  some  cases  concerned  directly 
with  national  heroes,  appealed  without  exception   to 


340  EUP.OPEAX   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

international  and  generally  human  interests.  The 
slightest  education,  or  the  slightest  hearing  of  per- 
sons educated,  sufficed  to  teach  every  one  that  Alex- 
ander and  Cffisar  were  great  conquerors,  that  the  Story 
of  Troy  (the  exact  truth  of  which  was  never  doubted) 
had  been  famous  for  hundreds  and  almost  thousands 
of  years,  Charlemagne  had  had  directly  to  do  with 
the  greater  part  of  Europe  in  peace  or  war,  and  the 
struggle  with  the  Saracens  was  of  old  and  universal 
interest,  freshened  by  the  Crusades.  The  Arthurian 
story  received  from  fiction,  if  not  from  history,  an 
almost  equally  wide  bearing ;  and  was,  besides^  knitted 
to  religion — the  one  universal  interest  of  the  time — by 
its  connection  with  the  Graal  All  Europe,  yet  again, 
had  joined  in  the  Crusades,  and  the  stories  brought  by 
the  crusaders  directly  or  indirectly  from  the  East  were 
in  the  same  way  common  property. 

But  saga-literature  had  nothing  of  this  appeal.  It 
was  as  indifferently  and  almost  superciliously  insular 
itsinsitJarUy  ^s  the  English  country-house  novel  itself, 
ofmanner,       g^j^^  ^-^r^y  \-iQ_yQ   produccd  in  somc  of   the 

very  few  foreigners  who  can  ever  have  known  it 
originally,  something  of  the  same  feelings  of  wrath 
which  we  have  seen  excited  by  the  English  country- 
house  novel  in  our  own  day.  The  heroes  were  not, 
according  to  the  general  ideas  of  mediaeval  Europe, 
either  great  chiefs  or  accomplished  knights ;  the 
heroines  were  the  very  reverse  of  those  damsels 
"with  mild  mood"  (as  the  catch -word  in  the  Eng- 
lish romances  has  it)  whom  the  general  Middle  Age 
liked  or  thought  it  liked.    An  intricate,  intensely  local, 


ICELANDIC    AND    PKOVENf;AL.  341 

and  (away  from  the  locality)  not  seldom  shocking  sys- 
tem of  law  and  public  morality  pervaded  the  whole. 
The  supernatural  element,  though  in  itself  it  might 
have  been  an  attraction,  was  of  a  cast  quite  different 
from  the  superstitions  of  the  South,  or  even  of  the 
Centre ;  and  the  Christian  element,  which  was  to  the 
]\Iiddle  Ages  the  very  air  they  breathed,  was  either 
absent  altogether  or  present  in  an  artificial^  uneasy, 
and  scanty  fashion. 

Yet  all  these  things  were  of  less  importance  than 
another,  which  is,  after  all,  the  great  differentia,  the 
ofscemryand  abiding  quality,  of  the  sagas.  In  the 
character.  literature  of  the  rest  of  Europe,  and 
especially  in  the  central  and  everywhere  radiating 
literature  of  France,  there  were  sometimes  local  and 
almost  parochial  touches  —  sometimes  unimportant 
heroes,  not  seldom  savage  heroines,  frequently  quaint 
bits  of  exotic  supernaturalism.  But  all  this  was  sub- 
dued to  a  kind  of  common  literary  handling,  a  "  dis- 
realising "  process  which  made  them  universally  ac- 
ceptable. The  personal  element,  too,  was  conspicu- 
ously absent — the  generic  character  is  always  upper- 
most. Charlemagne  was  a  real  person,  and  not  a  few 
of  the  incidents  with  which  he  was  connected  in  the 
chansons  were  real  events ;  but  he  and  they  have 
become  mere  stuff  of  romance  as  we  see  them  in 
these  poems.  Whether  Arthur  was  a  real  person  or 
not,  the  same  to  an  even  greater  extent  is  true  of 
him.  The  kings  and  their  knights  appealed  to  Eng- 
lishmen, Erenchmen,  Germans,  Italians  alike,  because 
they  were  not  obtrusively  English,  German,  Italian, 


342  EUltOrEAN   LITERATUIIE,    1100-1300. 

or  French.  But  the  sagas  are  from  the  first  and  to 
the  (at  least  genuine)  last  nothing  if  not  national, 
domestic,  and  personal.  The  grim  country  of  ice 
and  fire,  of  jokul  and  skerry,  the  massive  timber 
homesteads,  the  horse- fights  and  the  Viking  voyages, 
the  spinning-wheel  and  the  salting-tub,  are  with  us 
everywhere ;  and  yet  there  is  an  almost  startling 
individuality,  for  all  the  sameness  of  massacre  and 
chicanery,  of  wedding  and  divorce,  which  characterises 
the  circumstances,  Gunnar  is  not  distinguished  from 
Grettir  merely  by  their  adventures ;  there  is  no  need 
of  labels  on  the  lovers  of  Gudrun ;  Steingerd  in 
Kormak's  Saga  and  Hallgerd  in  Njal's,  are  each 
something  much  more  than  types  of  the  woman 
with  bad  blood  and  the  woman  with  blood  that  is 
only  light  and  hot.  And  to  the  unsophisticated 
reader  and  hearer,  as  many  examples  might  be  ad- 
duced to  show,  this  personality,  the  highest  excellence 
of  literature  to  the  sophisticated  scholar,  is  rather  a 
hindrance  than  a  help.  He  has  not  proved  the  ways 
and  the  persons  ;  and  he  likes  what  he  has  proved. 

To  us,  on  the  contrary,  the  characteristics  of  saga- 
work,  at  which  a  glance  has  been  made  in  the 
foregoing  paragraphs,  form  its  principal  charm,  a 
cliarm  reinforced  by  the  fact  of  its  extraordinary  dif- 
ference from  almost  all  other  literature  except  (in  some 
points)  that  of  the  Homeric  poems.  Although  there 
is  a  good  deal  of  common  form  in  the  sagas,  though 
outlawry  and  divorce,  the  quibbles  of  the  Thing  and 
the  violence  of  ambusli  or  holmgang,  recur  to  and 
beyond  the  utmost  limits  of  permitted  re]3etition,  the 


ICELANDIC   AND   PKOVENgAL.  343 

imfamiliarity  of  the  setting  atones  for  its  monotony, 
and  the  individuality  of  the  personages  themselves 
very  generally  prevents  that  monotony  from  being 
even  felt.  The  stories  are  never  tame ;  and,  what  is 
more  remarkable,  they  seldom  or  never  have  the  mere 
extravagance  which  in  mediteval,  at  least  as  often  as 
in  other,  writing,  plays  Scylla  to  the  Charybdis  of 
tameness.  Moreover,  they  have,  as  no  other  division 
of  medieval  romance  has  in  anything  like  the  same 
measure,  the  advantage  of  the  presence  of  intcrcstiiig 
characters  of  both  sexes.  Only  the  Arthurian  story 
can  approach  them  here,  and  that  leaves  still  an 
element  of  gracious  shadowiness  about  the  heroines, 
if  not  the  heroes.  The  Icelandic  heroine  has  nothing 
shadowy  about  her.  Her  weakest  point  is  the  want 
of  delicacy — not  in  a  finicking  sense  by  any  means — 
which  a  rough  promiscuous  life  to  begin  with,  and 
the  extreme  facility  and  frequency  of  divorce  on  the 
other,  necessarily  brought  about.  But  she  is  always, 
as  the  French  have  it,  a  "  person  " — when  she  is  good, 
a  person  altogether  of  the  best ;  even  when  she  is 
bad,  a  person  seldom  other  than  striking  and  often 
charming. 

There  is,  of  course,  Icelandic  literature  in  prose 
outside  of  the  sagas — the  great  law  code  {Gray as  or 
Fact  and  jmonGr^^y goose),  rcligious  books  in  the  usual 
in  the  sagas,  plenty,  scicntific  books  of  a  kind,  and 
others.  But  the  saga,  the  story,  was  so  emphatically 
the  natural  mould  into  which  Icelandic  literary  im- 
pulse threw  itself,  that  it  is  even  more  difficult  here 
than  elsewhere  at  the  time  to  separate  story  and  his- 


344  EUKOPEAN    LITER ATUKE,    1100-1300. 

tory,  fiction  and  fact.  Indeed  the  stricter  critics 
would,  I  believe,  maintain  that  every  saga  which 
deserves  the  name  is  actually  founded  on  fact:  the 
Laxdcda  no  less  than  the  Heimskringla^  the  story 
of  Kormak  no  less  than  that  of  Jarl  llognwald.  A 
merely  and  wholly  invented  story  (they  hold,  and 
perhaps  rightly)  would  have  been  repugnant  to  that 
extraordinarily  business-like  spirit  which  has  left  us, 
by  the  side  of  the  earlier  songs  and  later  sagas,  con- 
taining not  a  little  of  the  most  poetical  matter  of  the 
whole  world,  the  Landnama  Boh  of  Ari  Frodi,  a 
Domesday-book  turned  into  literature,  which  is  in- 
deed older  than  our  time,  but  which  forms  a  sort  of 
commentary  and  companion  to  the  whole  of  the  sagas 
by  anticipation  or  otherwise. 

Difficult  as  it  may  be  to  draw  the  line  between  in- 
tended history,  which  was  always  strongly  "  romanced  " 
,    in   form,  if  not  intentionally  in  fact,  and 

Classes  and  '' 

authorshi2>     that    vcry    pcculiar    product    of    Icelandic 
genius    the    saga    proper,    in    which    the 
original  domestic  record  has  been,  so  to  sj^eak,  "  super- 
romanced  "  into  a  work  of  art,  it  is  still  possible  to  see 
it,  if  not  to  draw  it,  between  the  Heimshringla,  the 


^  Dr  Vigfusson  is  exceedingly  severe  on  the  Hciniskrinyla,  which 
he  will  have  to  be  only  a  late,  weak,  and  rationalised  compilation 
from  originals  like  the  oddly  termed  "  Great  0.  T.  Saga."  But 
it  is  hard  for  a  man  to  think  hardly  of  the  book  in  which,  though 
only  a  translation,  he  first  read  how  Queen  Sigrid  the  Haughty  got 
rid  of  her  troublesome  lovers  by  the  effectual  process  of  burning  them 
en  iimsse  in  a  barn,  and  how  King  Olaf  died  the  greatest  sea-death — 
greater  even  than  Grenville's — of  any  defeated  hero,  in  history  or 
literature. 


ICELANDIC    AND    PliOVENgAL.  345 

story  of  the  Kings  of  Norway  (made  English  after  some 
earlier  versions  by  Messrs  Magnusson  and  Morris,  and 
abstracted,  as  genius  can  abstract,  by  Carlyle),  the 
Orkneyinga  and  Fcercyingct-  Sagas  (the  tales  of  these 
outlying  islands  before  the  former  came  under  Nor- 
wegian rule),  the  curious  conglomerate  known  as  the 
Sturlunga  Saga  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  greater  and 
lesser  sagas  proper  on  the  other.  The  former  are  set 
down  to  the  two  great  writers  Snorri  and  Sturla,  the 
one  the  chief  literary  light  of  Iceland  in  the  first  half 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  other  the  chief  light  in 
the  second,  both  of  the  same  family,  and  with  Ari 
Frodi  the  three  greatest  of  the  certainly  known  men 
of  letters  of  the  island.  Conjecture  has  naturally  run 
riot  as  to  the  part  which  either  Snorri  or  Sturla  may 
have  taken  in  the  sagas  not  directly  attributed  to  either, 
but  most  probably  dating  from  their  time,  as  well  as 
with  the  personalities  of  the  unknown  or  little  known 
poets  and  prosemen  who  shaped  the  older  stories  at 
about  the  same  period.  But  to  the  historian  who 
takes  delight  in  literature,  and  does  not  care  very 
much  who  made  it  provided  it  is  made  well,  what  has 
been  called  "  the  singular  silence "  as  to  authorship 
which  runs  through  the  whole  of  the  early  Icelandic 
literature  is  rather  a  blessing  than  otherwise.  It  frees 
him  from  those  biographical  inquiries  which  always 
run  the  risk  of  drawing  nigh  to  gossip,  and  it  en- 
ables him  to  concentrate  attention  on  the  literature 
itself. 

This  literature  is  undoubtedly  best  exemplified,  as 
we    should    expect,    in    the    wholly    anon}nious    and 


346  EUllOPEAN    LITEKATUIIE,    1100-1300. 

only  indirectly  historical  sagas  of  the  second  division, 
though  it  is  fair  to  say  that  tliere  is  nothing  here  much 
finer  than  such  things  as  the  famous  last  fight  of  King 
Olaf  in  the  Hcimskringla,  or  as  many  other  incidents 
and  episodes  in  the  history-books.  Only  the  hands  of 
the  writers  were  freer  in  the  others :  and  complete 
freedom — at  least  from  all  but  the  laws  of  art — is 
never  a  more  "  nobil  thing  "  than  it  is  to  the  literary 
artist. 

There  seems  no  reason  to  quarrel  with  the  classi- 
fication which  divides  the  sagas  proper  into  two 
The  five 'jrcaicr  classcs,  greater  and  lesser,  and  assigns  po- 
MQus.  sition  in  the  first  to  five   only — the   Saga 

of  Burnt  Njal,  that  of  the  dwellers  in  Laxdale,  the 
Eyrhyggja,  Egil's  Saga,  and  the  Saga  of  Grettir  the 
Strong.  It  is  very  unlucky  that  the  reception  ex- 
tended by  the  English  public  to  the  publications  of 
Mr  Vigfusson  and  Professor  York  Powell,  mentioned 
in  a  note  above,  did  not  encourage  the  editors  to 
proceed  to  an  edition  at  least  of  these  five  sagas 
together,  which  might,  according  to  estimate,  have 
been  done  in  three  volumes,  two  more  containing  all 
the  small  ones.  Meanwhile  Njala — the  great  sagas 
are  all  known  by  familiar  diminutives  of  this  kind 
—  is  accessible  in  English  in  the  late  Sir  G.  W. 
Dasent's  well-known  translation ;  ^  the  Eyi'hyggja  and 
Egla  in  abstracts  by  Sir  Walter  Scott-  and  Mr 
Gosse;^    Laxdctla   has    been    treated   as   it   deserves 

1  The  atory  of  Burnt  Njal.     Edinburgh,  1861. 

■-  Included  in  the  Bohn  edition  of  Mallet's  Northern  Antiquitieti. 

"  Oornhill  Marjailnc,  July  1879. 


ICELANDIC    AND    PKO VENIAL.  347 

in  the  longest  and  nearly  the  finest  section  of  J\lr 
Morris's  Earthly  Paradise ;  ^  and  the  same  writer 
with  Dr  Magnusson  has  given  a  literal  translation 
of  Grdtla? 

The  lesser  sagas  of  the  same  group  are  some  thirty 
in  numljer,  the  best  known  or  the  most  accessible 
being  those  of  Gunnlaug  Serpent's  -  Tongue,  often 
printed  in  the  original,^  very  short,  very  character- 
istic, and  translated  by  the  same  hands  as  Grettla;^ 
Vif/a  Glum,  translated  l:)y  Sir  Edmund  Head ;  ^  Gisli 
the  Outlaw  (Dasent) ; "  Hotuard  or  Havard  the  Halt, 
The  Banded  Men,  and  Hen  Thoinr  (Morris  and  Mag- 
nusson) ^ ;  Kormak,  said  to  be  the  oldest,  and  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  most  interesting.^ 

So  much  of  the  interest  of  a  saga  depends  on 
small  points  constantly  varied  and  renewed,  that 
only  pretty  full  abstracts  of  the  contents  of  one  can 
give  much  idea  of  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
attentive  reader  of  a  single  saga  can  usually  give 
a  very  good  guess  at  the  general  nature  of  any  other 
from  a  brief  description  of  it,  though  he  must  of 
course  miss  the  individual  touches  of  poetry  and  of 
character.     And   though  I   speak   with    the  humility 

^  "  The  Lovers  of  Gudruu  ; "  Noveiiiber,  part  iii.  p.  337,  origiual 
edition.     London,  1870. 

2  London,  1869. 

3  Gunnlauffs  tiarja  OrmsUmyu.     Ed.  Mogk.      Halle,  1886, 
*  In  Three  Northern  Lo%x- Stories.     London,  1875. 

5  London,  1866.  «  Edinburgh,  1866. 

^  In  one  volume.     London,  1891. 

^  Not  translated,  and  said  to  require  re-editing  in  the  original,  but 
Very  fully  abstracted  in  Northern  ArUiqvitics,  as  above,  pp.  321-339. 
The  verse  is  in  the  Corpus  Poeticwtn  Borcak. 


348  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

of  one  who  does  not  pretend  to  Icelandic  scholar- 
ship, I  think  that  translations  are  here  less  inadequate 
than  in  almost  any  other  language,  the  attraction  of 
the  matter  being  so  much  greater  than  that  of  the 
form.  For  those  who  will  not  take  the  slight  trouble 
to  read  Daseut's  JSjala,  or  Morris  and  Magnusson's 
Grettla,  the  next  best  idea  attainable  is  perhaps  from 
Sir  Walter  Scott's  abstract  of  the  Eyrhyggja  or  Mr 
Blackwell's  of  the  Kormak's  Saga,  or  Mr  Gosse's  of 
lUgla.  Njal's  Saga  deals  with  the  friendship  between 
the  warrior  Gunuar  and  the  lawyer  Njal,  which,  prin- 
cipally owing  to  the  black-heartedness  of  Guunar's  wife 
Hallgerd,  brings  destruction  on  both,  Njal  and  almost 
his  whole  family  being  burnt  as  the  crowning  point, 
but  by  no  means  the  end,  of  an  intricate  series  of 
reciprocal  murders.  For  the  blood -feuds  of  Iceland 
were  as  merciless  as  those  of  Corsica,  with  the  com- 
plication— thoroughly  Xorthern  and  not  in  the  least 
Southern — of  a  most  elaborate,  though  not  entirely 
impartial,  system  of  judicial  inquiries  and  compen- 
sations, either  by  fine  or  exile.  To  be  outlawed  for 
murder,  either  in  casual  affray  or  in  deliberate  attack, 
was  almost  as  regular  a  part  of  an  Icelandic  gentle- 
man's avocations  from  his  home  and  daily  life  as  a 
journey  on  viking  or  trading  intent,  and  was  often 
combined  with  one  or  both.  But  outlawry  and  fine 
by  no  means  closed  the  incident  invariably,  though 
they  sometimes  did  so  far  as  the  feud  was  concerned : 
and  there  is  hardly  one  saga  which  does  not  mainly  or 
partly  turn  on  a  tangle  of  outrages  and  inquests. 
As  Njala  is  the  most  complete  and  dramatic  of  the 


ICELANDIC  AND  PROVENCAL.  349 

sagas  where  love  has  no  very  prominent  part  except 
in    the    Helen -like    danMrousness,   if    not 

Niala, 

exactly  Helen -like  charm,  of  Hallgerd,  of 
whom  it  might  certainly  be  said  that 

"Where'er  she  came, 
She  brought  Calamity  "  ; 

so  Lnxdaia  is  the  chief  of  those  in  which  love  figures, 

though  on  the  male  side  at  least  there  is  no  lover  that 

interests  ns  as  much  as  the  hapless,  reck- 

Laxdala.  ^^  ,  ^  r  ' 

less  poet  ivormak,  or  as  Gunnlaug  Serpent's- 
Tongue.  The  Earthly  Paradise  should  have  made 
familiar  to  all  the  quarrel  or.  if  hardly  quarrel,  feud 
between  the  cousins  Kiartan  and  Bodli,  or  Belli, 
owing  to  the  fatal  fascinations  of  Gudrun.  Gudrun 
is  less  repulsive  than  Hallgerd,  but  she  cannot  be 
said  to  be  entirely  free  from  the  drawbacks  whichj 
as  above  suggested,  are  apt  to  be  found  in  the  Ice- 
landic heroine.  It  is  more  difficult  to  sentiment,  if 
not  to  morality,  to  pardon  four  husbands  than  many 
times  four  lovers,  and  the  only  persons  with  whom 
Gudrun's  relations  are  wholly  agreeable  is  Kiartan, 
who  was  not  her  husband.  But  the  pathos  of  the 
story,  its  artful  unwinding,  and  the  famous  utter- 
ance of  the  aged  heroine — 

"  I  did  the  worst  to  him  I  loved  the  most," 

which  is  almost  literally  from  tlie  Icelandic,  redeem 
anything  unsympathetic  in  the  narrative :  and  the 
figure  of  Bodli,  a  strange  mixture  of  lionour  and 
faithlessness  to  the   friend   he  loves  and   murders,  is 


350  EUROPEAN    LTTEr.ATTTRE,    1100-1300. 

one  of  the  most  striking  among  the  thralls  of  Venns 
in  literature. 

The   defect  of  the  Eyrhyggja  Saga  is   its   want   of 

any  central  interest ;    for  it  is   the  history  not  of  a 

person,  nor  even  of  one  single  family,  but 

Eyrhyggja.  .... 

of  a  whole  Icelandic  district  with  its  in- 
habitants from  the  settlement  onwards.  Its  attrac- 
tion, therefore,  lies  rather  in  episodes — the  rivalry  of 
the  sorceresses  Katla  and  Geirrid ;  the  circumventing 
of  the  (in  this  case  rather  sinned  against  than  sinning) 
bersarks  Hall  and  Leikner ;  the  very  curious  ghost- 
stories  ;  and  the  artful  ambition  of  Snorri  the  Godi. 
Still,  to  make  an  attractive  legend  of  a  sort  of  "  county 
history  "  may  be  regarded  as  a  rare  triumph,  and  the 
saga  is  all  the  more  important  because  it  shows, 
almost  better  than  any  other,  the  real  motive  of 
nearly  all  these  stories — that  they  are  real  chansons 
de  (jestc,  family  legends,  with  a  greater  vividness  and 
individuality  than  the  French  genius  could  then  im- 
part, though  presented  more  roughly. 

The  Saga  of  Egil  Skallagrimsson,  again,  shifts  its 
special  points  of  attraction.  It  is  the  history  partly 
of  the  family  of  Skallagrim,  but  chiefly  of 
his  sou  Egil,  in  opposition  to  Harald  Har- 
fagr  and  his  son  Eric  Blood-axe,  of  Egil's  wars  and 
exploits  in  England  and  elsewhere,  of  his  service  to 
King  Athelstan  at  Brunanburh,  of  the  faithfulness 
of  his  friend  Arinbiorn,  and  the  hero's  consequent  rescue 
from  the  danger  in  which  he  had  thrust  himself  by 
seeking  his  enemy  King  Eric  at  York,  of  his  son's 
shipwreck  and  Egil's  sad  old  age,  and  of  many  other 


ICELANDIC   AND    PEOVEX(;*AL.  351 

moving  events.  This  has  the  most  historic  interest  of 
any  of  the  great  sagas,  and  not  least  of  the  personal 
appeal.  Perhaps,  indeed,  it  is  more  like  a  really  good 
historical  novel  than  any  other. 

If,  however,  it  were  not  for  the  deficiency  of  feminine 
character  (a  deficiency  which  rehandlers  evidently  felt 
and  endeavoured  to  remedy  by  the  expedient  of  tack- 
ing on  an  obvious  plagiarism  from  Tristan 

Grettla.  ^  ^     ^ 

as  an  appendix,  ostensibly  dealing  with  the 
avenging  of  the  hero),  the  fifth,  Grettis  Saga  or  Grettla, 
would  perhaps  be  the  best  of  all. 

It  is  true  that  some  experts  have  found  fault  with 

this  as  late  in  parts,  and  bolstered  out  with  extraneous 

matter  in  other  respects  beside  the  finale 

Its  critics. 

just  referred  to.  The  same  critics  denounce 
its  poetical  interludes  (see  infra)  as  spurious,  object  to 
some  traits  in  it  as  coarse,  and  otherwise  pick  it  to 
pieces.  Nevertheless  there  are  few  sagas,  if  there  arc 
any,  which  produce  so  distinct  and  individual  an  effect, 
which  remind  us  so  constantly  that  we  are  in  Iceland 
and  not  elsewhere.  In  pathos  and  variety  of  interest 
it  cannot  touch  Njala  or  Laxdcda :  in  what  is  called 
"  weirdness,"  in  wild  vigour,  it  surpasses,  I  think,  all 
others ;  and  the  supernatural  element,  which  is  very 
strong,  contrasts,  I  think,  advantageously  with  the 
more  business-like  ghostliness  of  Eyrhyygja. 

After  an  overture  about  the  hero's  forebears,  wliieh 
in  any  other  country  would  be  as  certainly  spurious 
as  the  epilogue,  but  to  which  the  peculiar  cliaracter 
of  saga-writing  gives  a  rather  different  claim  here,  the 
story  proper  begins  with  a  description  of  the  youtli 


352  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    llGO-i:'00. 

of  Grettir  the  Strong,  second  son  to  Asmund  the  Grey- 
haired  of  Biarg.  who  had  made  mnch  money  by  sea- 
faring, and  Asdis,  a  great  heiress  and  of  great  kin. 
The  sagaman  consults  poetical  justice  very  well  at  first, 
and  prepares  us  for  an  unfortunate  end  by  depicting 
Grettir  as,  though  valiant  and  in  a  way  not  ungenerous, 
yet  not  merely  an  incorrigible  scapegrace,  but  some- 
what unamiable  and  even  distinctly  ferocious.  That, 
being  made  gooseherd,- and  finding  the  birds  trouble- 
some, he  knocks  them  about,  killing  some  goslings, 
may  not  be  an  unpardonable  atrocity.  And  even 
when,  being  set  to  scratch  his  father's  back,  he 
employs  a  wool- comb  for  that  purpose,  much  to  the 
detriment  of  the  paternal  skin  and  temper,  it  does  not 
very  greatly  go  beyond  the  impishness  of  a  naughty 
boy.  But  when,  being  promoted  to  mind  the  horses, 
and  having  a  grudge  against  a  certain  "  wise  "  mare 
named  Keingala,  because  she  stays  out  at  graze  longer 
than  suits  his  laziness,  he  flays  the  unhappy  beast 
alive  in  a  broad  strip  from  shoulder  to  tail,  the  thing 
goes  beyond  a  joke.  Also  he  is  represented,  through- 
out the  saga,  as  invariably  capping  his  pranks  or  crimes 
with  one  of  the  jeering  enigmatic  epigrams  in  which 
one  finds  considerable  excuse  for  the  Icelandic  prone- 
ness  to  murder.  However,  in  his  boyhood,  he  does 
not  go  beyond  cruelty  to  animals  and  fighting  with 
his  equals ;  and  his  first  homicide,  on  his  way  with  a 
friend  of  his  father's  to  the  Thing-Parliament,  is  in 
self-defence.  Still,  having  no  witnesses,  he  is,  though 
powerfully  backed  (an  all -important  matter),  fined 
and  outlawed   for  three  years.      There  is  little  love 


ICELANDIC  AND  PEOVENgAL.         353 

lost  between  him  and  his  father,  and  he  is  badly 
fitted  out  for  the  grand  tour,  which  usually  occupies 
a  young  Icelandic  gentleman's  first  outlawry ;  but  his 
mother  gives  him  a  famous  sword.  On  the  voyage  he 
does  nothing  but  flirt  with  the  mate's  wife :  and  only 
after  strong  provocation  and  in  the  worst  weather 
consents  to  bale,  which  he  does  against  eight  men. 

They  are,  however,  wrecked  off  the  island  of  Haram- 
sey,  and  Grettir,  lodging  with  the  chief  Thorfinn,  at 
first  disgusts  folk  here  as  elsewhere  with  his  sulky, 
lazy  ways.  He  acquires  consideration,  however,  by 
breaking  open  the  barrow  of  Thorfinn's  father,  and 
not  only  bringing  out  treasures  (which  go  to  Thorfinn), 
but  fighting  with  and  overcoming  the  "  barrow-wight " 
(ghost)  itself,  the  first  of  the  many  supernatural  in- 
cidents in  the  story.  The  most  precious  part  of  the 
booty  is  a  peculiar  "  short-sword."  Also  when  Thor- 
finn's wife  and  house  are  left,  weakly  guarded,  to  the 
mercy  of  a  crew  of  unusually  ruffianly  bersarks, 
Grettir  by  a  mixture  of  craft  and  sheer  valour  suc- 
ceeds in  overcoming  and  slaying  the  twelve  bersarks 
single-handed.  Thorfinn  on  his  return  presents  him 
with  the  short  -  sword  and  becomes  his  fast  friend. 
He  has  plenty  of  opportunity :  for  Grettir,  as  usual, 
neither  entirely  by  his  own  fault  nor  entirely  witliout 
it,  owing  to  his  sulky  temper  and  sour  tongue,  suc- 
cessively slays  three  brothers,  being  in  the  last 
instance  saved  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  by 
Thorfinn,  his  own  half  -  brother  Thorstein  Dromond, 
and  others,  from  the  wrath  of  Swein,  Jarl  of  the 
district.     So  that  by  the  time  when  he  can  return  to 

z 


354  EUKOPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-lP.OO. 

Iceland,  he  has  made  Norway  too  hot  to  hold  him ; 
and  he  lands  in  liis  native  island  with  a  great  repute 
for  strength,  valour,  and,  it  must  be  added,  quarrel- 
someness. For  some  time  he  searches  about  "  to  see 
if  there  might  be  anywhere  somewhat  with  which  he 
might  contend."  He  finds  it  at  a  distant  farm,  which 
is  haunted  by  the  ghost  of  a  certain  godless  shepherd 
named  Glam,  who  was  himself  killed  by  Evil  Ones, 
and  now  molests  both  stock  and  farm  -  servants. 
Grettir  dares  the  ghost,  overcomes  him  after  a 
tremendous  conflict,  which  certainly  resembles  that 
in  Beoundf  most  strikingly,^  and  slays  him  (for  Ice- 
landic ghosts  are  mortal) ;  but  not  before  Glam  has 
spoken  and  pronounced  a  curse  upon  Grettir,  that  his 
strength,  though  remaining  great,  shall  never  grow, 
that  all  his  luck  shall  cease,  and,  finally,  that  the  eyes 
of  Glam  himself  shall  haunt  him  to  the  death. 

Grettir  at  first  cares  little  for  this ;  but  the  last 
part  of  the  curse  comes  on  almost  at  once  and  makes 
him  afraid  to  be  alone  after  dark,  while  the  second  is 
not  long  delayed.  On  the  eve  of  setting  out  once 
more  for  Norway,  he  quarrels  with  and  slays  a  brag- 
gart named  Thorbiorn ;  during  the  voyage  itself  he  is 
the  unintentional  cause  of  a  whole  household  of  men 
being  burnt  to  death ;  and  lastly,  by  his  own  quarrel- 
some temper,  and  some  "  metaphysical  aid,"  he  misses 

^  It  seems  almost  incredible  that  the  resemblances  between 
Beoivulf  and  the  Grcttis  Saga  should  never  have  struck  any  one 
till  Dr  Vigfusson  noticed  them  less  than  twenty  years  ago.  But 
the  fact  seems  to  be  so ;  and  nothing  could  better  prove  the  rarity 
of  that  comparative  study  of  literature  to  which  this  series  aims  at 
being  a  modest  contribution  and  incentive. 


ICELANDIC  AND  PROVENCAL.  355 

tlie  chance  of  clearing  himself  by  "  bearing  iron " 
(ordeal)  before  King  Olaf  at  Drontheim,  Olaf,  his  own 
kinsman,  tells  him  with  all  frankness  that  he,  Grettir, 
is  much  too  "  unlucky "  for  himself  to  countenance ; 
and  that  though  he  shall  have  no  harm  in  Norway,  he 
must  pack  to  Iceland  as  soon  as  the  sea  is  open.  He 
accordingly  stays  during  the  winter,  in  a  peace  only 
broken  by  the  slaying  of  another  bersark  bully,  and 
partly  passed  with  his  brother  Thorstein  Dromond. 

Meanwhile  Asmund  has  died,  his  eldest  son  Atli 
has  succeeded  him,  and  has  been  waylaid  by  men 
suborned  by  Thorbiorn  Oxmain,  kinsman  of  the  Thor- 
biorn  whom  Grettir  slew  before  leaving  Iceland  the 
second  time.  Atli  escapes  and  slays  his  foes.  Then 
Thorbiorn  Oxmain  himself  visits  Biarg  and  slays  the 
unarmed  Atli,  who  is  not  avenged  because  it  was 
Grettir's  business  to  look  after  the  matter  when  he 
came  home.  But  Glam's  curse  so  works  that,  though 
plaintiff  in  this  case,  he  is  outlawed  in  his  absence  for 
the  burning  of  the  house  above  referred  to,  in  which 
he  was  quite  guiltless ;  and  when  he  lands  in  Iceland 
it  is  to  find  himself  deprived  of  all  legal  rights,  and 
in  such  case  that  no  friend  can  harbour  him  except 
under  penalty. 

Grettir,  as  we  might  expect,  is  not  much  daunted 
by  this  complication  of  evils,  but  he  lies  hid  for  a  time 
at  his  mother's  house  and  elsewhere,  not  so  much  to 
escape  his  own  dangers  as  to  avenge  Atli  on  Thorbiorn 
Oxmain  at  the  right  moment.  At  last  he  finds  it ;  and 
Thorbiorn,  as  well  as  his  sixteen-year-old  son  Arnor, 
who  rather  disloyally  helps  him,  is  slain  by  Grettir 


356  EUEOPEAN  LITERATUEE,   1100-1300. 

single  -  handed.  His  plight  at  first  is  not  much 
worsened  by  this ;  for  though  the  simple  plan  of  set- 
ting off  Thorbiorn  against  Atli  is  not  adopted,  Grettir's 
case  is  backed  directly  by  his  kinsmen  and  indirectly 
by  the  two  craftiest  men  in  Iceland,  Snorri  the  Godi 
and  Skapti  the  LawmaUj  and  the  latter  points  out  that 
as  Grettir  had  been  outlawed  hefore  it  was  decreed  that 
the  onus  of  avenging  Atli  lay  on  him,  a  fatal  flaw  had 
been  made  in  the  latter  proceeding,  and  no  notice  could 
be  taken  of  the  death  of  Thorbiorn  at  all,  though  his 
kin  must  pay  for  Atli.  This  fine  would  have  been  set 
off  against  Grettir's  outlawry,  and  he  would  have  be- 
come a  freeman,  had  not  Thorir  of  Garth,  the  father 
of  the  men  he  had  accidentally  killed  in  the  burning 
house,  refused ;  and  so  the  well  -  meant  efforts  of 
Grettir's  kin  and  friends  fall  through. 

From  this  time  till  the  end  of  his  life  he  is  a  houseless 
outlaw,  abiding  in  all  the  most  remote  parts  of  the 
island — "  Grettir's  lairs,*'  as  they  are  called,  it  would 
seem,  to  this  day — sometimes  countenanced  for  a  short 
time  by  well-willing  men  of  position,  sometimes  dwell- 
ing with  supernatural  creatures, — Hallmund,  a  kindly 
spirit  or  cave-dweller  with  a  hospitable  daughter,  or 
the  half-troll  giant  Thorir,  a  person  of  daughters  like- 
wise. But  his  case  grows  steadily  worse.  Partly 
owing  to  sheer  ill-luck  and  Glam's  curse,  partly,  as  the 
saga-writer  very  candidly  tells  us,  because  he  "  was  not 
an  easy  man  to  live  withal,"  his  tale  of  slayings  and 
the  feuds  thereto  appertaining  grows  steadily.  For  the 
most  part  he  lives  by  simple  cattle-lifting  and  the  like, 
which  naturally  does  not  make  him  popular;  twice 


ICELAJ!JDIC   AND   PROVEN^'AL.  357 

other  outlaws  come  to  abide  with  him,  and,  after  longer 
or  shorter  time,  try  for  his  richly  priced  head,  and 
though  they  lose  their  own  lives,  naturally  make  him 
more  and  more  desperate.  Once  he  is  beset  by  his 
enemy  Thorir  with  eighty  men;  and  only  comes  off 
through  the  backing  of  his  ghostly  friend  Hallmund, 
who  not  long  after  meets  his  fate  by  no  ignoble  hand, 
and  Grettir  cannot  avenge  him.  Again,  Grettir  is 
warmly  welcomed  by  a  widow,  Steinvor  of  Sand-heaps, 
at  whose  dwelling,  in  the  oddest  way,  he  takes  up  the 
full  Beowulf  adventure  and  slays  a  troll-wife  in  a  cave 
just  as  his  forerunner  slew  Grendel's  mother.  But  in 
the  end  the  hue  and  cry  is  too  strong,  and  by  ad- 
vice of  friends  he  flies  to  the  steep  holm  of  Drangey 
in  Holmfirth — a  place  where  the  top  can  only  be  won 
by  ladders — with  his  younger  brother  Illugi  and  a 
single  thrall  or  slave.  Illugi  is  young,  but  true 
as  steel :  the  slave  is  a  fool,  if  not  actually  a  traitor. 
After  the  bonders  of  Drangey  have  done  what  they 
could  to  rid  themselves  of  this  very  damaging  and 
redoubtable  intruder,  they  give  up  their  shares  to  a 
certain  Thorbiorn  Angle.  Thorbiorn  at  first  fares  ill 
against  Grettir,  whose  outlawry  is  on  the  point  of 
coming  to  an  end,  as  none  might  last  longer  than 
twenty  years.  With  the  helj)  of  a  wound,  witch- 
caused  to  Grettir,  and  the  slave's  treacherous  laziness, 
Thorbiorn  and  his  crew  climb  the  ladders  and  beset  the 
brethren — Grettir  already  half  dead  with  his  gangrened 
wound.  The  hero  is  slain  with  his  own  short-sword ; 
the  brave  Illugi  is  overwhelmed  with  the  shields  of  the 
eighteen  assailants,  and  then  slaughtered  in  cold  blood. 


358  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

But  Thorbiorn  reaps  little  good,  for  his  traffickings  with 
witchcraft  deprive  him  of  his  blood-money ;  the  deaths 
of  his  men,  of  whom  Illugi  and  Grettir  had  slain  not  a 
few,  are  set  against  Illugi's  own  ;  and  Thorbiorn  him- 
self, after  escaping  to  Micklegarth  (Constantinople) 
and  joining  the  Varangians,  is  slain  by  Thorstein 
Dromond,  who  has  followed  him  thither  and  joined 
the  same  Guard  on  purpose,  and  who  is  made  the  hero 
of  the  appendix  above  spoken  of. 

The  defects  of  this  are  obvious,  and  may  be  probably 

enough  accounted  for  in  part  by  the  supposition  of  the 

experts  above  referred  to — that  the  saga  as 

Merits  of  it.  '■  .       .  ° 

we  have  it  is  rather  later  than  the  other 
great  sagas,  and  is  a  patchwork  of  divers  hands.  It 
may  perhaps  be  added,  as  a  more  purely  literary  criti- 
cism, that  no  one  of  these  hands  can  have  been  quite  a 
master,  or  that  his  work,  if  it  existed,  must  have  been 
mutilated  or  disfigured  by  others.  For  the  most  is 
nowhere  made,  except  in  the  Glam  fight  and  the  last 
scenes  on  Drangey,  of  the  admirable  situations  pro- 
vided by  the  story  ;  and  the  presentation  of  Grettir  as 
a  man  almost  everywhere  lacks  the  last  touches,  while 
the  sagaman  has  simply  thrown  away  the  opportunities 
afforded  him  by  the  insinuated  amourettes  with  Stein- 
vor  and  the  daughters  of  the  friendly  spirits,  and  has 
made  a  mere  faUiau  episode  of  another  thing  of  the 
kind.  Nevertheless  the  attractions  of  Grettla  are 
unique  as  regards  the  mixture  of  the  natural  and 
supernatural;  not  inferior  to  any  other  as  illustra- 
ting the  quaintly  blended  life  of  Iceland  ;  and  of  the 
highest  kind  as  regards  the  conception  of  the  hero — 


ICELANDIC  AND  PROVENgAL.  359 

a  not  ungenerous  Strength,  guided  by  no  intellectual 
greatness  and  by  hardly  any  overmastering  passion, 
marred  by  an  unsocial  and  overbearing  temper,  and 
so  hardly  needing  the  ill  luck,  which  yet  gives  poeti- 
cal finish  and  dramatic  force  to  the  story,  to  cast 
itself  utterly  away.  For  in  stories,  as  in  other  games, 
play  without  luck  is  fatiguing  and  jejune,  luck  without 
play  childish.  It  is  curious  how  touching  is  the  figure 
of  the  ill-fated  hero,  not  wholly  amiable,  yet  over- 
matched by  Fortune,  wandering  in  waste  places  of  a 
country  the  fairest  spots  of  which  are  little  better 
than  a  desert,  forced  by  his  terror  of  "  Glam-sight "  to 
harbour  criminals  far  worse  than  himself,  and  well 
knowing  that  they  seek  his  life,  grudgingly  and  fear- 
fully helped  by  his  few  friends,  a  public  nuisance 
where  he  should  have  been  a  public  champion,  only 
befriended  heartily  by  mysterious  shadowy  personages 
of  whom  little  is  positively  told,  and  when,  after 
twenty  years  of  wild-beast  life,  his  deliverance  is  at 
hand,  perishing  by  a  combination  of  foul  play  on  the 
part  of  his  foes  and  neglect  on  that  of  his  slave.  At 
least  once,  too,  in  that  parting  of  Asdis  with  Grettir 
and  Illugi,  which  ranks  not  far  below  the  matchless 
epitaph  of  Sir  Ector  on  Lancelot,  there  is  not  only 
suggestion,  but  expression  of  the  highest  quality : — 

"  '  Ah  !  my  sons  twain,  there  ye  depart  from  me,  and 

one  death  ye  shall  have  together,  for  no  man  may  flee 

from  that  which  is  wrought  for  him.     On 

The  parting  '^ 

of  Asdis  and   no  day  uow  shall  I  see  either  of  you  once 

again.    Let  one  fate,  then,  be  over  you  both; 

for  I  know  not  what  weal  ye  go  to  get  for  yourselves 


360  EUROPEAN   LITEKATURE,    1100-1300. 

in  Drangey,  but  there  ye  shall  both  lay  your  bones, 
and  many  shall  grudge  you  that  abiding-place.  Keep 
ye  heedfully  from  wiles,  for  marvellously  have  my 
dreams  gone.  Be  well  ware  of  sorcery ;  yet  none  the 
less  shall  ye  be  bitten  with  the  edge  of  the  sword,  for 
nothing  can  cope  with  the  cunning  of  eld.'  And  when 
she  had  thus  spoken  she  wept  right  sore.  Then  said 
Grettir,  '  Weep  not,  mother ;  for  if  we  be  set  upon  by 
weapons  it  shall  be  said  of  thee  that  thou  hast  had  sons 
and  not  daughters.'     And  therewith  they  parted." 

These  moments,  whether  of  incident  or  expression, 
are  indeed  frequent  enough  in  the  sagas,  though  the 
Great  passages  main  attraction  may  consist,  as  has  been 
of  the  sagas.  s^[^^  in  tlic  wild  interest  of  the  story  and 
the  vivid  individuality  of  the  characters.  The  slaying 
of  Gunnar  of  Lithend  in  Njala,  when  his  false  wife 
refuses  him  a  tress  of  hair  to  twist  for  his  stringless 
bow,  has  rightly  attracted  the  admiration  of  the  best 
critics ;  as  has  the  dauntless  resignation  of  Njal  him- 
self and  Bergthora,  when  both  might  have  escaped 
their  fiery  fate.  Of  the  touches  of  which  the  Egil's 
Saga  is  full,  few  are  better  perhaps  than  the  picture 
in  a  dozen  words  of  King  Eric  Blood-axe  "  sitting  bolt 
upright  and  glaring"  at  the  son  of  Skallagrim  as  he 
delivers  the  panegyric  which  is  to  save  his  life,  and 
the  composition  of  which  had  been  so  nearly  baulked 
by  the  twittering  of  the  witch -swallow  under  his 
eaves.  The  "long"  kisses  of  Kormak  and  Steiugerd, 
and  the  poet's  unconscious  translation  of  ^Eschylus^ 

1  Compare,  mutitis  mutandis,  Again..  410  s^.;  and  Kormak's  "Stray 
verses."  11.  41-44,  in  the  Corpua.  ii.  65. 


ICELANDIC  AND  PROVENCAL.  361 

as  he  says,  "Eager  to  find  my  lady,  I  have  scoured 
the  whole  house  with  the  glances  of  my  eyes  —  in 
vain/'  dwell  in  the  memory  as  softer  touches.  And 
for  the  sterner,  nothing  can  beat  the  last  fight  of 
Olaf  Trygveson,  where  with  the  crack  of  Einar  Tam- 
berskelvir's  bow  Norway  breaks  from  Olaf's  hands, 
and  the  king  himself,  the  last  man  with  Kolbiorn  his 
marshal  to  fight  on  the  deck  of  the  Long  Serpent, 
springs,  gold-helmed,  mail-coated,  and  scarlet-kirtled, 
into  the  waves,  and  sinks  with  shield  held  up 
edgeways^  to  weight  him  through  the  deep  green 
water. 

The  saga  prose  is  straightforward  and  business-like, 

the  dialogue  short  and  pithy,  with  considerable  in- 

terspersion  of  proverbial  phrase,  but  witli, 

style.  .  r  >  > 

except  m  case  of  bad  texts,  very  little 
obscurity.  It  is,  however^  much  interspersed  also 
with  verses  which,  like  Icelandic  verse  in  general,  are 
alliterative  in  prosody^  and  often  of  the  extremest 
euphuism  and  extravagance  in  phrase.  All  who  have 
even  a  slight  acquaintance  with  sagas  know  the  ex- 
traordinary periphrases  for  common  objects,  for  men 
and  maidens,  for  ships  and  swords,  that  bestrew 
them.  There  is,  I  believe,  a  theory,  not  in  itself 
improbable,  that  the  more  elaborate  and  far-fetched 
the  style  of  this  imagery,  the  later  and  less  genuine 
is  likely  to  be  the  poem,  if  not  the  saga ;  but  it  is 
certain  that  the  germs  of  the  style  are  to  be  found 

^  Hclriixl-riH(jla,  does  not  sni/  "  eilgeways,"  but  tlii.s  is  the  clear  mean- 
ing. Kolbioru  held  his  shield  flat  and  below  him,  so  that  it  acted  as 
a  float,  and  he  was  taken.     Olaf  sank. 


362  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

in    the    Havavial   and    the    other   earliest    and    most 
certainly  genuine  examples. 

It  is  perhaps  well  to  add  that  very  small  sagas 
are  called  thcettir  ("  scraps  "),  the  same  word  as  "  tait " 
in  the  Scots  phrase  "  tait  of  wool."  But  it  is  admitted 
that  it  is  not  particularly  easy  to  draw  the  line  between 
the  two,  and  that  there  is  no  difference  in  real  char- 
acter. In  fact  short  sagas  might  be  called  thcettir  and 
vice  versd.  Also,  as  hinted  before,  there  is  exceedingly 
little  comedy  in  the  sagas.  The  roughest  horse-play 
in  practical  joking,  the  most  insolent  lampoons  in 
verbal  satire,  form,  as  a  rule,  the  lighter  element ; 
and  pieces  like  the  Bandamanna  Saga,  which  with 
tragic  touches  is  really  comic  in  the  main,  are  ad- 
mittedly rare. 

In  regard  to  the  second,  and  contrasted,  division  of 
the  subject  of  the  present  chapter,  it  has  been  already 
vrovcn^ai  notcd  that,  just  as  Icelandic  at  this  period 
mainly  lyric,  prescuts  to  the  purvicw  of  the  comparative 
literary  historian  one  main  subject,  if  not  one  only — 
the  saga — so  Provenc^al  presents  one  main  subject,  and 
almost  one  only — the  formal  lyric.  The  other  pro- 
ducts of  the  Muse  in  langue  d'oc,  whether  verse  or 
prose,  are  so  scanty,  and  in  comparison  ^  so  uuim- 

^  Of  course  this  is  only  in  comiiarisoii.  For  iustauce,  in  Dr 
Suchier's  Denkmiilcr  (Halle,  1883),  which  contains  nearly  500  large 
pages  of  Provencal  anecdota,  about  four- fifths  is  devotional  matter 
of  various  kinds  and  in  various  forms,  prose  and  verse.  But  such 
matter,  which  is  common  to  all  mediaival  languages,  is  hardly  litera- 
ture at  all,  being  usually  translated,  with  scarcely  any  expense  of 
literary  originality,  from  the  Latin,  or  each  other. 


ICELANDIC   AND   PRO  VENIAL,  363 

portant,  that  even  special  historians  of  the  subject 
have  found  but  little  to  say  about  them.  The  earliest 
monument  of  all,  perhaps  the  earliest  finished  monu- 
ment of  literature  in  any  Romance  language,  the 
short  poem  on  Boethius,  in  assonanced  decasyllabic 
laisscs, — even  in  its  present  form  probably  older  than 
our  starting  -  point,  and,  it  may  be,  two  centuries 
older  in  its  first  form, —  is  indeed  not  lyrical ;  nor 
is  the  famous  and  vigorous  verse  -  history  of  the 
Albigensian  War  in  chanson  style ;  nor  the  scanty 
remnants  of  other  chansons,  Girart  cle  Rossilho,  Daurel 
et  Beton,  Aigar  ct  Maurin,  which  exist ;  nor  the  later 
romans  d'avcnture  of  Jaufrc,  Flamcnca,  Blandin  of 
Cornwall.  But  in  this  short  list  almost  everything 
of  interest  in  our  period — the  flourishing  period  of 
the  literature  —  has  been  mentioned  which  is  not 
lyrical.^  And  if  these  things,  and  others  like  them 
in  much  larger  number,  had  existed  alone,  it  is  certain 
that  Provencal  literature  would  not  hold  the  place 
which  it  now  holds  in  the  comparative  literary  history 
of  Europe. 

That  place  is  due  to  its  lyric,  construing  that  term 
in  a  wide  sense  such  as  that  (but  indeed  a  little  wider) 
in  which  it  has  been  already  used  with  reference  to 
the  kindred  and  nearly  contemporary  lyric  of  France 
proper.  It  is  best  to  say  "nearly  contemporary," 
because  it  would  appear  that  Provencal  actually  had 

1  Alberic's  Alexander  {v.  chap,  iv.)  is  of  course  Provencal  in  a  way, 
and  there  was  probably  a  Provencal  intermediary  between  the  Chan- 
son d'Antioche  and  the  Spanish  Gran  Conqucsta  dc  Ultramar.  But  we 
have  only  a  few  lines  of  the  first  and  nothing  of  the  second. 


364  EUKOPEAN   LITEllATUllE,    1100-1300. 

the  start  of  French  in  this  respect,  though  no  great 
start :  and  it  is  best  to  say  "  kindred "  and  not 
"daughter,"  because  though  some  forms  and  more 
names  are  common  to  the  two,  their  developments 
are  much  more  parallel  than  on  the  same  lines,  and 
they  are  much  more  sisters  than  mother  and  daughter. 

It  would  appear,  though  such  things  can  never  be 
quite  certain,  that,  as  we  should  indeed  expect,  the 

oHgin  of      ^^st  dcvclopments  of  Provencal  lyric  were 

this  lyric,  q^  ^j^q  hymu  kind,  and  perhaps  originally 
mixtures  of  Eomance  and  Latin.  This  mixture  of 
the  vernacular  and  the  learned  tongues,  both  spoken  in 
all  probability  with  almost  equal  facility  by  the  writer, 
is  naturally  not  uncommon  in  the  Middle  Ages :  and 
it  helps  to  explain  the  rapid  transference  of  the  Latin 
hymn-rhythms  to  vernacular  verse.  Thus  we  have  a 
JVocl  or  Christmas  poem  not  only  written  to  the  tune 
and  in  the  measure  of  a  Latin  hymn,  In  hoc  anni 
circulo,  not  only  crowning  the  Provencal  six-syllable 
triplets  with  a  Latin  refrain,  "  De  virgine  Maria,"  and 
other  variations  on  the  Virgin's  title  and  name,  but 
with  Latin  verses  alternate  to  the  ProvenQal  ones. 
This  same  arrangement  occurs  with  a  Provencal  fourth 
rhyme,  which  seems  to  have  been  a  favourite  one. 
It  is  arranged  with  a  variety  which  shows  its  earliness, 
for  the  fourth  line  is  sometimes  "  in  the  air  "  rhyming 
to  nothing,  sometimes  rhymes  with  the  other  three, 
and  sometimes  forces  its  sound  on  the  last  of  them,  so 
that  the  quatrain  becomes  a  pair  of  couplets. 

The  earliest  purely  secular  lyrics,  however,  are  at- 
tributed to  William  IX.,  Count  of  Poitiers,  who  was 


ICELANDIC  AND  PROVEN9AL.  365 

a  crusader  in  the  very  first  year  of  the  twelfth  century, 
and  is  said  to  have  written  an  account  of  his 

Forms.  .  1    •    1      •       i  -rr-       i         • 

journey  which  is  lost.  His  lyrics  survive  to 
the  number  of  some  dozen,  and  show  that  the  art  had 
by  his  time  received  very  considerable  development. 
For  their  form,  it  may  suffice  to  say  that  of  those 
given  by  Bartsch  ^  the  first  is  in  seven-lined  stanzas, 
rhymed  aaaahah,  the  a  -  rhyme  lines  being  iambic 
dimeters,  and  the  5's  monometers.  Number  two  has 
five  six-lined  stanzas,  all  dimeters,  rhymed  anahab : 
and  a  four-lined  finale,  rhymed  a&,  ah.  The  third  is 
mono-rhymed  throughout,  the  lines  being  dissyllabic 
with  licence  to  extend.  And  the  fourth  is  in  the 
quatrain  aaab^  but  with  the  h  rhyme  identical  through- 
out, capped  with  a  couplet  aK  If  these  systems  be 
compared  with  the  exact  accounts  of  early  Trench, 
English,  and  German  lyric  in  chapters  v.-vii ,  it  will 
be  seen  that  Provenc^al  probably,  if  not  certainly,  led 
the  way  in  thus  combining  rhythmic  arrangement 
and  syllabic  proportion  with  a  cunning  variation  of 
rhyme-sound.     It  was  also  the  first  language  to  classify 

^  The  Grundriss  zxir  Gcuchichtc  dcr  Provcnzalischcn  Llteratur  (Elber- 
feld,  1872)  and  the  Ohrcstomathie  Provcnrale  (3d  ed.j  Elberfeld,  187^) 
of  this  excellent  scholar  will  not  soon  be  obsolete,  and  may,  in  the 
peculiar  conditions  of  the  case,  suffice  all  but  special  students  in  a 
degree  hardly  possible  in  any  other  literature.  Malm's  Trouhadour.t 
and  the  older  works  of  Raynouard  and  Fauriel  are  the  chief  store- 
houses of  wider  information,  and  separate  editions  of  the  works  of 
the  chief  jwets  are  being  accumulated  by  modern,  chiefly  German, 
scholars.  An  interesting  and  valuable  addition  to  the  Ewjlish  litera- 
ture of  the  subject  has  been  made,  since  the  text  was  written,  by 
Miss  Ida  Farnell's  Lives  of  the  Trouladovr.<i.  a  translation  with  added 
specimens  of  the  poets  and  other  editorial  matter. 


366  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,   1100-1300. 

poetry,  as  it  may  be  called,  by  assigning  special  forms 
to  certain  kinds  of  subject  or — if  not  quite  this — to 
constitute  classes  of  poems  themselves  according  to 
their  arrangement  in  line,  stanza,  and  rhyme.  A 
complete  prosody  of  the  language  of  canso  and  sirventc, 
of  vers  and  cohla,  of  planh,  tenso,  torncjamcns,  balada, 
rdrocnsa,  and  the  rest,  would  take  more  room  than 
can  be  spared  here,  and  would  hardly  be  in  place  if  it 
were  otherwise.  All  such  prosodies  tend  rather  to  the 
childish,  as  when,  for  instance,  the  pastorela,  or  shep- 
herdess poem  in  general,  was  divided  into  porquiera, 
cabreira,  auqueira,  and  other  things,  according  as  the 
damsel's  special  wards  were  pigs  or  goats  or  geese. 
Perhaps  the  most  famous,  peculiar,  and  representative 
of  Provencal  forms  are  the  alba,  or  poem  of  morning 
parting,  and  the  sirvente,  or  poem  not  of  love.  The 
sestina,  a  very  elaborate  canzonet,  was  invented  in 
Provence  and  borrowed  by  the  Italians.  But  it  is 
curious  to  find  that  the  sonnet,  the  crown  and  flower 
of  all  artificial  poetry,  though  certainly  invented  long 
before  the  decadence  of  Provengal,  was  only  used  in 
Provenc^al  by  Italian  experimenters.  The  poets  proper 
of  the  languc  d'oc  were  probably  too  proud  to  admit 
any  form  that  they  had  not  invented  themselves. 

Next  in  noteworthiness  to  the  variety  of  form  of 
the  Provencal  poets  is  their  number.  Even  the  mul- 
Many  men,  titudc  of  twuvdrcs  and  Miuncsingers  dwin- 
onemimi.  (jjgg  besidc  the  list  of  four  hundred  and 
sixty  named  poets,  for  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  only,  which  Bartsch's  list  contains  ;  some,  it 
is  true,  credited  with  only  a  single  piece,  but  others 


ICELANDIC   AND   PEO VENIAL.  367 

with  ten,  twenty,  fifty,  or  even  close  to  a  hundred,  not 
to  mention  an  anonymous  appendix  of  over  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  poems  more.  Great,  however,  as  is  the 
bulk  of  tliis  division  of  literature,  hardly  any  has  more 
distinct  and  uniform  —  its  enemies  may  say  more 
monotonous — characteristics.  It  is  not  entirely  com- 
posed of  love-poetry ;  but  the  part  devoted  to  this  is 
so  very  much  the  largest,  and  so  very  much  the  most 
characteristic,  that  popular  and  almost  traditional 
opinion  is  scarcely  wrong  in  considering  love-poetry 
and  Provencal  poetry  to  be  almost,  and  with  the  due 
limitation  in  the  first  case,  convertible  terms. 

The  spirit  of  this  poetry  is  nowhere  better  shown 
than  in  the  refrain  of  an  anonymous  alba,  which 
begins — 

"  En  iin  verger  sotz  folha  d'albespi," 

and  which  has  for  burden — 

"  Oi  deus  !  oi  deus,  de  Talba,  tant  tost  ve  ! " 

of  which  an  adaptation  liy  Mr  Swinburne  is  well 
known.  "  In  the  Orchard,''  however,  is  not  only  a 
much  longer  poem  than  the  alha  from  which  it  bor- 
rows its  burden,  but  is  couched  in  a  form  much  more 
elaborate,  and  lias  a  spirit  rather  early  Italian  than 
Provenc^al.  It  is,  indeed,  not  very  easy  to  define  the 
Provencal  spirit  itself,  which  has  sometimes  been  mis- 
taken, and  oftener  exaggerated.  Although  the  aver- 
age troubadour  poem — whether  of  love,  or  of  satire, 
or,  more  rarely,  of  war — is  much  less  simple  in  tone 
than  the  Northern  lyric  already  commented  on,  it 
cannot   be    said    to   be   very   complex;   and,   on   the 


368  EUROPEAN  LITERATURE,   1100-1300. 

whole,  the  ease,  accomplishment,  and,  within  certain 

strict  limits,  variety  of  the  form  are  more  remarkable 

than  any  intensity  or  volume  of  passion  or  of  thought. 

The   musical   character   (less    inarticulate   and   more 

regular),  which  has  also  been  noted  in  the  poems  of 

the  trouv^rcs,  is  here  eminent :  though  the  woodnote 

wild  of  the  Minnesinger  is  quite  absent  or  very  rarely 

present.     The  facility  of  double  rhymes,  with  a  full 

vowel   sound    in   each   syllable,  has   a    singular   and 

very  pleasing  effect,  as  in  the  piece  by  Marcabrun 

beginning — 

"  L'autrier  jost  una  sebissa," 

"  the  other  day  by  a  hedge,"  the  curiously  complicated 
construction  of  which  is  worth  dwelling  on  as  a  speci- 
men. It  consists  of  six  double  stanzas,  of  fourteen 
lines  or  two  septets  each,  finished  by  a  sestet,  aahaab. 
The  septets  are  rhymed  aaabaab ;  and  though  the  a 
rhymes  vary  in  each  set  of  fourteen,  the  h  rhymes 
are  the  same  throughout ;  and  the  first  of  them  in 
Example  of  each  scptct  is  the  same  word,  vilana 
rhyme-schemcs.  (peasant  girl),  tliroughout.  Thus  we  have 
as  the  rhymes  of  the  first  twenty-eight  lines  sebissa, 
mestissa,  massissa,  vilana,  pelissa,  treslissa,  lana ;  pla- 
nissa,  faitissa,  Jissa,  vilana,  noirissa„  m'erissa,  sana; 
pia,  via,  conipanliia,  vilana,  paria,  hcstia,  soldana ;  sia, 
folia,  parelharia,  vilana,  s'cstia,  hailia,  Vufana. 

Such  a  carillon  of  rhymes  as  this  is  sometimes  held 
to  be  likely  to  concentrate  the  attention  of  both  writer 
Provencal  poetry  and  reader  too  much  on  the  accompani- 
not  great.         ^^^^^^  ^^^  ^^  j^^^^  ^^le  formcr  little  time 

to  convey,  and  the  latter  little  chance  of  receiving, 


ICELANDIC  AXD  PKOVENQAL.  369 

any  very  particularly  choice  sense.  This  most  cer- 
tainly cannot  be  laid  down  as  a  universal  law ;  there 
are  too  many  examples  to  the  contrary,  even  in  our 
own  language,  not  to  go  further^  But  it  may  be  ad- 
mitted that  when  the  styles  of  literature  are  both 
fashionable  and  limited,  and  when  a  very  large  num- 
ber of  persons  endeavour  to  achieve  distinction  in 
them,  there  is  some  danger  of  something  of  the  sort 
coming  about.  No  nation  has  ever  been  able,  in  the 
course  of  less  than  two  centuries,  to  provide  four 
hundred  and  sixty  named  poets  and  an  indefinitely 
strong  reinforcement  of  anonyms,  all  of  whom  have 
native  power  enough  to  produce  verse  at  once  elabo- 
rate in  form  and  sovereign  in  spirit ;  and  the  peoples 
of  the  langue  d'oe,  who  hardly  together  formed  a 
nation,  were  no  exception  to  the  rule.  That  rule  is 
a  rule  of  "  minor  poetry,"  accomplished,  scholarly, 
agreeable,  but  rarely  rising  out  of  minority. 

Yet  their  educating  influence  was  undoubtedly 
strong,  and  their  actual  production  not  to  be  scorned. 
But  extraordin-  In  the  Capacity  of  teachers  they  were  not 
ariiy  pedagogic,  ^ithout  stroug  influence  ou  their  Northern 
countrymen ;  they  certainly  and  positively  acted  as 
direct  masters  to  the  literary  lyric  both  of  Italy  and 
Spain ;  they  at  least  shared  with  the  trouvires  the 
position  of  models  to  the  Minnesingers.  It  is  at  first 
sight  rather  surprising  that,  considering  the  intimate 
relations  between  England  and  Aquitaine  during  the 
period — considering  that  at  least  one  famous  trouba- 
dour, Bertran  de  Born,  is  known  to  have  been  con- 
cerned  in   the  disputes   between   Henry   IF.  nnd  his 

2  A 


370  EUROPEAN"  LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

sons  —  l*rovenral  should  not  liave  exercised  more 
direct  influence  over  English  literature.  It  was  a 
partly  excusable  mistake  which  made  some  English 
critics,  who  knew  that  Eichard  Crour  de  Lion,  for 
instance,  was  himself  not  unversed  in  the  "  manner 
of  trohar,"  assert  or  assume,  until  within  the  present 
century,  that  it  did  exercise  such  influence.  But,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  did  not ;  and  the  reason  is  suffi- 
ciently simple,  or  at  least  (for  it  is  double  rather  than 
simple)  sufficiently  clear. 

In  the  first  place,  English  was  not,  until  quite  the 

end  of  the  flourishing  period  of  Provencal  poetry,  and 

specially  at  the  period  above   referred  to, 

Though  not        ^  ''  ,  ^ 

directly  on  in  a  couditiou  to  profit  by  Provencal 
'"''  "  ■  models ;  while  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
when  English  connection  with  the  south  of  France 
was  closer  still,  Provenc^al  was  in  its  decadence.  And, 
in  the  second  place,  the  structure  and  spirit  of  the 
two  tongues  almost  forbade  imitation  of  the  one  in 
the  other.  It  was  Northern,  not  Southern,  French 
that  helped  to  make  English  proper  out  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  ;  and  the  gap  between  Northern  French  and 
Southern  French  themselves  was  far  wider  than  be- 
tween Provencal  and  the  Peninsular  tongues.  To 
which  things,  if  any  one  pleases,  he  may  add  the  differ- 
ence of  the  spirit  of  the  two  races ;  but  this  is  always 
vague  and  uncertain  ground,  and  is  best  avoided  when 
we  can  tread  on  the  firm  land  of  history  and  litera- 
ture proper.  Such  a  rhyme  -  arrangement  as  that 
above  set  forth  is  probably  impossiljle  in  English ; 
even  now   it   will   lie   observed   that  Mr    Swinburne, 


ICELANDIC  AND  FROVENCAL.  371 

the  greatest  master  of  double  and  treble  rhymes  that 
we  have  ever  had,  rarely  succeeds  in  giving  even  the 
former  with  a  full  spondaic  effect  of  vowel  such  as  is 
easy  in  Provencal.  In  "  The  Garden  of  Proserpine " 
itself,  as  in  the  double  rhymes,  where  they  occur,  of 
"  The  Triumph  of  Time "  (the  greatest  thing  ever 
written  in  the  Provencal  manner,  and  greater  than 
anything  in  Provencal),  the  second  vowels  of  the 
rhymes  are  never  full.  And  there  too,  as  I  think 
invariably  in  English,  the  poet  shows  his  feeling  of 
the  intolerableness  of  continued  double  rhyme  by 
making  the  odd  verses  rhyme  plump  and  with  single 
sound. 

Of  poetry  so  little  remarkable  in  individual  man- 
ner or  matter  it  is  impossible  to  give  abstracts,  such 
as  those  which  have  been  easy,  and  it  may  be  hoped 
profitable,  in  some  of  the  foregoing  chapters ;  and  pro- 
longed analyses  of  form  are  tedious,  except  to  the 
expert  and  the  enthusiast.  With  some  brief  account,, 
therefore,  of  the  persons  who  chiefly  composed  this 
remarkable  mass  of  lyric  we  may  close  a  notice  of  the 
subject  which  is  superficially  inadequate  to  its  impor- 
tance, but  which,  perhaps,  will  not  seem  so  to  those 
who  are  content  not  merely  to  count  pages  but  to 
weigh  moments.  The  moment  which  Provenqal  added 
to  the  general  body  of  force  in  European  literature 
was  that  of  a  limited,  somewhat  artificial,  but  at  the 
same  time  exquisitely  artful  and  finished  lyrical  form, 
so  adapted  to  the  most  inviting  of  the  perennial  mo- 
tives of  literature  that  it  was  sure  to  lead  to  imitation 
and  development.     It  gave  means  and  held  up  models 


372  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    llOO-WOO. 

to  those  who  were  able  to  produce  greater  effects  than 
are  to  be  found  in  its  own  accomplishment:  yet  was 
not  its  accomplishment,  despite  what  is  called  its 
monotony,  despite  its  limits  and  its  defects,  other  than 
admirable  and  precious. 

The  "  first  warbler,"  Count  William  IX.  of  Poitiers, 
has  already  been  mentioned,  and  his  date    fixed   at 
Some  exactly  the  first  year  of  our  period.     His 

troubadmirs.  chief  immediate  successors  or  contempo- 
raries were  Cercamon  ("  Cherchemonde,"  Cursor 
Mundi);  the  above  quoted  Marcabrun,  who  is  said 
to  have  accompanied  Cercamon  in  his  wanderings, 
and  who  has  left  much  more  work  ;  and  Bertrand  de 
Ventadorn  or  Ventadour,  perhaps  the  best  of  the 
group,  a  farmer's  son  of  the  place  from  which  he  takes 
his  noble-sounding  name,  and  a  professional  lover  of 
the  lady  thereof.  Of  Jaufre  (Geoffrey)  Eudel  of  Blaye, 
whose  love  for  the  lady  of  Tripoli,  never  yet  seen 
by  him,  and  his  death  at  first  sight  of  her,  supply, 
with  the  tragedy  of  Cabestanh  and  the  cannibal  ban- 
quet, the  two  most  famous  pieces  of  Troubadour 
anecdotic  history,  we  have  half-a-dozen  pieces.  In 
succession  to  these,  Count  Eambaut  of  Orange  and 
Countess  Beatrice  of  Die  keep  up  the  reputation  of 
the  gai  saber  as  an  aristocratic  employment,  and  the 
former's  poem — 

"Escoutatz  mas  no  sai  que  s'es" 

(in  six-lined  stanzas,  rhymed  abahah,  with  prose  "  tags  " 
to  each,  something  in  the  manner  of  the  modern  comic 
song),  is  at  least  a   curiosity.     The   primacy   of   the 


ICELANDIC   AND   PEG  VENIAL.  373 

whole  school  in  its  most  flourishing  time,  between 
1150  and  1250,  is  disputed  by  Arnaut  Daniel  (a  great 
master  of  form,  and  as  such  venerated  by  his  greater 
Italian  pupils)  and  Giraut  de  Bornelh,  who  is  more 
fully  represented  in  extant  work  than  most  of  his 
fellows,  as  we  have  more  than  fourscore  pieces  of  his. 
Peire  or  Peter  Vidal,  another  typical  troubadour,  who 
was  a  crusader,  an  exceedingly  ingenious  verse-smith, 
a  great  lover,  and  a  proficient  in  the  fantastic  pranks 
which  rather  brought  the  school  into  discredit,  inas- 
much as  he  is  said  to  have  run  about  on  all  fours 
in  a  wolfskin  in  honour  of  his  mistress  Loba  (Lupa) ; 
Gaucelm  Paidit  and  Arnaut  de  Maroilh,  Folquet  of 
Marseilles,  and  Eambaut  of  Vaqueras ;  the  Monk  of 
Montaudon  and  Bertrand  de  Born  himself,  who  witli 
Peire  Cardinal  is  the  chief  satirist  (though  the  satire 
of  the  two  takes  different  forms) ;  Guillem  Pigueira, 
the  author  of  a  long  invective  against  Rome,  and  Sor- 
dello  of  mysterious  and  contingent  fame, — are  other 
chief  members,  and  of  some  of  them  we  have  early, 
perhaps  contemporary,  Lives,  or  at  least  anecdotes. 
For  instance,  the  Cabestanh  or  Cabestaing  story  comes 
from  these.  The  last  name  of  importance  in  our 
period,  if  not  the  last  of  the  right  troubadours,  is 
usually  taken  to  be  that  of  Guiraut  lliquier. 

It  would  scarcely  be   fair  to  say  that  the  exploit 

attributed  to  Ptambaut  of  Vaqueras,  a  poet  of  the  very 

Criticism  of  palmiest  time,  at  the  juncture  of  the  twelftli 

Provencal,     and  thirteenth  ccnturics — that  of  composing 

a  poem  in  lines  written  successively  in  three  dilferent 


374  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    llUO-1300. 

forms  of  Provencal  {lang^te  d'oc  proper,  Gascon,  and 
Catalan),  in  languc  d'o'il,  and  in  Italian,  with  a  coda 
line  jumbled  up  of  all  five — is  a  final  criticism  at  once 
of  the  merits  and  the  defects  of  this  literature.  But 
it  at  least  indicates  the  lines  of  such  a  criticism.  By 
its  marvellous  suppleness,  sweetness,  and  adaptation 
to  the  verbal  and  metrical  needs  of  poetry,  Provencal 
served — in  a  fashion  probably  impossible  to  the  stiffer 
if  more  virile  tongues — as  an  example  in  point  of  form 
to  these  tongvies  themselves :  and  it  achieved,  at  the 
same  time  with  a  good  deal  of  mere  gymnastic,  exer- 
cises in  form  of  the  most  real  and  abiding  beauty.  But 
it  had  as  a  language  too  little  character  of  its  own, 
and  was  too  fatally  apt  to  shade  into  the  other  lan- 
guages— French  on  the  one  hand,  Spanish  and  Italian 
on  the  other — with  which  it  was  surrounded,  and  to 
which  it  was  akin.  And  coming  to  perfection  at  a 
time  when  no  modern  thought  was  distinctly  formed, 
when  positive  knowledge  was  at  a  low  ebb,  and  when 
it  had  neither  the  stimulus  of  vigorous  national  life 
nor  the  healthy  occupation  of  what  may  be  called 
varied  literary  business,  it  tended  to  become,  on  the 
whole,  too  much  of  a  plaything  merely.  Now,  schools 
and  playgrounds  are  both  admirable  things,  and  neces- 
sary to  man ;  but  what  is  done  in  both  is  only  an 
exercise  or  a  relaxation  from  exercise.  Neither  man 
nor  literature  can  stay  either  in  class-room  or  playing- 
field  for  ever,  and  Provenc^al  had  scarcely  any  other 
places  of  abode  to  ofier. 


375 


CHAPTEE    IX. 

THE   LITEliATUKE    OF   THE   PENINSULAS. 

LIMITATIONS  UF  THIS  CHAITER LATE  GKEEK  KOMAXCE — ITS  DIFFICULTIES 

AS    A    SUBJECT ANNA    COMNENA,    ETC. '  HYSMINIAS    AND    HYSMINE  ' 

— ITS  STYLE  —  ITS  STORY  —  ITS  HANDLING  —  ITS  "  DEC.VDENCE  " — 
LATENESS  OF  ITALIAN  —  THE  "  SARACEN  "  THEORY  —  THE  "FOLK- 
SONG "  THEORY — CIULLO  d'aLCAMO — HEAVY  DEBT  TO  FRANCE — YET 
FORM  AND  SPIRIT  BOTH  ORIGINAL  —  LOVE  -  LYRIC  IN  DIFFERENT 
EUROPEAN  COUNTRIES — POSITION  OP  SPANISH — CATALAN-PR0\TEN9AL 
— GALICIAN-PORTUGUESE — CASTILIAN — BALLADS  ? — THE  *  POEMA  DEL 
CID' — A  SPANISH  "chanson  DE  GESTE  " — IN  SCHEME  AND  SPIRIT — 
DIFFICULTIES  OF  ITS  PROSODY BALLAD-METRE  THEORY IRREGU- 
LARITY OF  LINE — OTHER  POEMS — APOLLONIUS  AND  MARY  OF  EGYIT 
— BERCEO — ALFONSO    EL    SABIO. 

There  is  something  more  than  a  freak,  or  a  mere 
geographical  adaptation,  in  taking  together,  and  at 
Limitations  of  the  last,  the  contributions  of  the  three 
this  chapter,  peninsulas  which  form  the  ext?eme  south 
of  Europe.  For  in  the  present  scheme  they  form,  as 
it  were,  but  an  appendix  to  the  present  book.  The 
dying  literatvire  of  Greece — if  indeed  it  be  not  more 
proper  to  describe  this  phase  of  Byzantine  writing  as 
ghostly  rather  than  moribund — presents  at  most  but 
one  point  of  interest,  and  that  rather  a  Frcujc,  a  thesis, 


376  EUKOPEAN   LITEKATURE,    1100-1300. 

than  a  solid  literary  contribution.  The  literature  of 
Italy  prior  to  the  fourteenth  century  is  such  a  daughter 
of  Provenc^al  on  the  one  hand,  and  is  so  much  more 
appropriately  to  be  taken  in  connection  with  Dante 
than  by  itself  on  the  other,  that  it  can  claim  admis- 
sion only  to  be,  as  it  were,  "  laid  on  the  table."  And 
that  of  Spain,  though  full  of  attraction,  had  also  but 
just  begun,  and  yields  but  one  certain  work  of  really 
high  importance,  the  Pocma  del  Cicl,  for  serious  comment 
in  our  pages.  In  the  case  of  Spain,  and  still  more  in 
that  of  Italy,  the  scanty  honour  apparently  paid  here 
will  be  amply  made  up  in  other  volumes  of  the  series. 
As  much  can  hardly  be  said  of  Greece.  Conscientious 
chroniclers  of  books  may,  indeed,  up  to  the  sixteenth 
century  find  something  which,  though  scarcely  litera- 
ture, is  at  any  rate  written  matter.  And  at  the  very 
last  there  is  the  attempt,  rather  respectable  than  suc- 
cessful, to  re-create  at  once  the  language  and  the 
literature,  for  the  use  of  Greeks  who  are  at  least 
questionably  Hellenic,  in  relation  to  forms  and  sub- 
jects separated  by  more  than  a  millennium — by  nearly 
two  millennia  —  from  the  forms  and  the  subjects  in 
regard  to  which  Greek  was  once  a  living  speech.  ^But 
Greek  literature,  the  living  literary  contribution  of 
Greek  to  J^^urope,  almost  ceases  with  tlie  latest  poets 
of  the  Anthology. 

In  what  has  been  called  the  "ghost"  time,  however. 

in  that  portion  of  it  which  belongs  to  our  present 

Late  Greek     period,  there  is  one  shadow  that   flutters 

romance.      ^jt^j-^  r^  nearer  approach  to  substance  than 

most.      Some   glance   has    been   made   above   at   the 


THE   LITEEATURE   OF   THE   PENINSXJLAS.  377 

question,  "What  was  the  exact  relation  between 
western  romance  and  that  later  form  of  Greek  novel- 
writing  of  which  the  chief  relic  is  the  Hysminias  and 
Hysminc  ^  of  Eustathius  Macrembolita  ? "  Were  these 
stories,  many  of  which  must  be  lost,  or  have  not  yet 
been  recovered,  direct,  and  in  their  measure  original 
and  independent,  continuations  of  the  earlier  school 
of  Greek  romance  proper?  Did  they  in  that  case, 
through  the  Crusades  or  otherwise,  come  under  the 
notice  of  the  West,  and  serve  as  stimulants,  if  not 
even  directly  as  patterns,  to  the  far  greater  achieve- 
ments of  Western  romance  itself?  Do  they,  on  the 
other  hand,  owe  something  to  models  still  farther 
East  ?  Or  are  they,  as  has  sometimes  been  hinted, 
copies  of  Western  romance  itself?  Had  the  still 
ingenious,  though  hopelessly  effeminate,  Byzantine 
mind  caught  up  the  literary  style  of  the  visitors  it 
feared  but  could  not  keep  out  ? 

All  these  questions  are  questions  exceedingly  proper 
to  be  stated  in  a  book  of  this  kind ;  not  quite  so 
■Its  difficulties  proper  to  be  worked  out  in  it,  even  if  the 
asambjcct.  working  out  wcrc  possible.  But  it  is 
impossible  for  two  causes  —  want  of  room,  which 
might  not  be  fatal;  and  want  of  ascertained  fact, 
which  cannot  but  be  so.  Despite  the  vigorous  work 
of  recent  generations  on  all  literary  and  historical 
subjects,  no  one  has  yet  succeeded,  and  until  some 
one  more  patient  of  investigation  than  fertile  in 
theory  arises,  no  one  is  likely  to  succeed,  in  laying 

'  Ed.   Hercher,  Erotki  Scriptorcs  Grccci  (2  vols.,   Leipzig,  1858), 
ii.  161-286, 


378  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

down  the  exact  connection  between  Eastern,  Western, 
and,  as  go  -  between,  Byzantine  literature.  Even  in 
matters  which  are  the  proper  domain  of  history 
itself,  such  as  those  of  the  Trojan  and  Alexandrine 
Apocryphas,  much  is  still  in  the  vague.  In  the  case 
of  Western  Eomance,  of  the  later  Greek  stories,  and 
of  such  Eastern  matter  as,  for  instance,  the  story  of 
Sharkan  and  that  of  Zumurrud  and  her  master  in  the 
Arabian  Nights,  the  vague  rules  supreme.  There  were, 
perhaps,  iirowy^re-knights  in  the  garrisons  of  Edessa  or 
of  Jof  who  could  have  told  us  all  about  it.  But  nobody 
did  tell :  or  if  anybody  did,  the  tale  has  not  survived. 

But  this  interest  of  problem  is  not  the  only  one 
that  attaches  to  the  "  drama/'  as  he  calls  it,  of  Eusta- 
Anna  Com-  thius  or  Eumathius  "  the  philosopher,"  who 
ncna,<s:c.  flourished  at  some  time  between  the 
twelfth  and  the  fourteenth  century,  and  is  therefore 
pretty  certainly  ours.  Eor  the  purposes  of  literary 
history  the  book  deserves  to  be  taken  as  the  typical 
contribution  of  Greek  during  the  period,  much  better 
than  the  famous  Alexiad  of  Anna  Comnena  ^  in  history, 
or  the  verse  romances  of  Eustathius's  probable  contem- 
poraries Theodorus  Prodromus^  and  JSTicetas  Eugeni- 
anus."  The  princess's  book,  though  historically  impor- 
tant, and  by  no  means  disagreeable  to  read,  is,  as  liter- 
ature, chiefly  remarkable  as  exhibiting  the  ease  and 
the  comparative  success  with  which  Greek  lent  itself 
to  the  formation  of  an  artificial  sti/le  noble,  more  like 
the  writing  of  the  average  (not  the  better)  Frenchman 

1  Ed.  Reifferscheid.      2  vols.      Leipzig,  1884. 
-  Following  Eustathius  in  Hercher,  o^j.  cit. 


THE    LlTEKATUr.E   OF   THE   PENINSULAS.  379 

of  the  eighteenth  century  than  it  is  like  anything  else. 
It  is  this  peculiarity  which  has  facilitated  the  con- 
struction of  the  literary  jJcistichc  called  Modern  Greek, 
and  perhaps  it  is  this  which  will  long  prevent  the  pro- 
duction of  real  literature  in  that  language  or  pseudo- 
language. On  the  other  hand,  the  books  of  Theodorus 
and  Nicetas,  devoted,  according  to  rule,  to  the  loves 
respectively  of  Rhodanthe  and  Dosicles,  of  Charicles 
and  Drosilla.  are  written  in  iambic  trimeters  of  the 
very  worst  and  most  wooden  description.  It  is  doubt- 
ful whether  even  the  great  Tragic  poets  could  have 
made  the  trimeter  tolerable  as  the  vehicle  of  a  lont' 
story.  In  the  hands  of  Theodorus  and  Nicetas  its 
monotony  becomes  utterly  sickening,  while  the  level 
of  the  composition  of  neither  is  much  above  that  of 
a  by  no  means  gifted  schoolboy,  even  if  we  make  full 
allowance  for  the  changes  in  prosody,  and  especially  in 
c[uantity,  which  had  set  in  for  Greek  as  they  had  for 
other  languages.  The  question  whether  these  iambics 
are  more  or  less  terrible  than  the  "  political  verses  "  ^ 
of  the  Wise  Manasses,"  which  usually  accompany  them 
in  editions,  and  which  were  apparently  inserted  in 
what  must  have  been  the  inconceivably  dreary  romance 
of  "  Aristander  and  Callithea,"  must  be  left  to  indi- 
vidual taste  to  decide.  Manasses  also  wrote  a  History 
of  the  World  in  the  same  rhythm,  and  it  is  possible 
that  he  may  have  occasionally  forgotten  which  of  the 
two  books  he  was  writing  at  any  given  time. 

^  These  political  verses  are  fiftcen-syllaliled,  witii  a  Cicsura  at  the 
eighth,  and  in  a  rhythm  ostensibly  accentual. 
"  Erotici  Scriptorcs,  ii.  555. 


380  EUROPEAN  LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

But   Hysminias    and   Hysmine  ^    has    interests    of 
character  which  distinguish  its  author  and  itself,  not 
Hysminias  aud  merely  from  the  herd  of  chroniclers  and 
Hysmine.        commcntators  who   make  up  the  bulk  of 
Byzantine  literature   so-called,  but  even   from   such 
more  respectable  but   somewhat  featureless  work  as 
Anna  Comnena's.     It  is  not  a  good  book ;  but  it  is 
by  no  means  so  extremely  bad  as  the  traditional  judg- 
ment (not  always,  perhaps,  based  on  or  buttressed  by 
direct  acquaintance  with  the  original)  is  wont  to  give 
out.     On  one  at  least  of  the  sides  of  this  interest  it  is 
quite  useless  to  read  it  except  in  the  original,  for  the 
attraction  is  one  of  style.    Neither  Lyly  nor  any  of  our 
late  nineteenth-century  "stylists"  has  outgone,  perhaps 
none  has  touched,  Eustathius  in  euphuism. 

Its  style.  _  -*■ 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  while  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  best  Greek  style  usually  prefers  the 
most  direct  and  natural  order,  its  suppleness  lends 
itself  to  almost  any  gymnastic,  and  its  lucidity  pre- 
vents total  confusion  from  arising.  Eustathius  has 
availed  himself  of  these  opportunities  for  "  raising 
his  mother  tongue  to  a  higher  power "  to  the  very 
utmost.  No  translation  can  do  justice  to  the  elaborate 
foppery  of  even  the  first  sentence,-  with  its  coquetry 

^  Sometimes  spelt  Ismenias  and  Israenc.  1  believe  it  was  first 
published  in  an  Italian  translation  of  the  late  Renaissance,  and  it  has 
appeared  in  other  languages  since.  But  it  is  only  worth  reading  in 
its  own. 

^  noAis  ^vptiKw/xts  Kal  raWa  fxev  ayadrj,  on  Kal  daKaTTij  ffTecpafovTai 
KOI  TrolK/j.o7s  KUTappiTrai  ku'l  Aet/xuxri  Kofj.d  Kal  rpvcpa'ts  tvdrjvuTai  iravro- 
SaTrais,  to.  S'  els  6iovs  (iifff^ris,  Kal  vwhp  jas  xpvcrus  ^AQrivas  '6Kri  ^w/xSi, 
'6\i]  6v/j.a,  Ofols  audOrjixa. 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  RENINSULAS.     381 

of  arrangement,  its  tormented  structure  of  phrase,  its 
jingle  of  sound -repetition,  its  desperate  rejection  of 
simplicity  in  every  shape  and  form.  To  describe  pre- 
cisely the  means  resorted  to  would  take  a  chapter  at 
least.  They  are  astonishingly  modern — the  present 
tense,  the  use  of  catchwords  like  o\o<i,  the  repetitions 
and  jingles  above  referred  to.  Excessively  elaborate 
description  of  word-painting,  though  modern  too,  can 
hardly  be  said  to  be  a  novelty :  it  had  distinguished 
most  of  the  earlier  Greek  novelists,  especially  Achilles 
Tatius.  But  there  is  something  in  the  descriptions  of 
Hysmmias  and  Hysminc  more  mediaeval  than  those  of 
Achilles,  more  like  the  Romance  of  the  Rose,  to  which, 
indeed,  there  is  a  curious  resemblance  of  atmosphere 
in  the  book.  Triplets  of  epithet — "  a  man  athirst,  and 
parched,  and  boiling  " —  meet  us.  There  is  a  frequent 
economy  of  conjunctions.  There  is  the  resort  to  per- 
sonification— for  instance,  in  the  battle  of  Love  and 
Shame,  which  serves  as  climax  to  the  elaborate  de- 
scription of  the  lovers'  kissing.  In  short,  all  our  old 
friends — the  devices  which  every  generation  of  seekers 
after  style  parades  with  such  a  touching  conviction 
that  they  are  quite  new,  and  which  every  literary 
student  knows  to  be  as  old  as  literature — are  to  be 
found  here.  The  language  is  in  its  decadence:  the 
writer  has  not  much  to  say.  But  it  is  surprising  how 
much,  with  all  his  drawbacks,  he  accomplishes. 

Whether  the  book,  either  as  an  individual  composi- 
tion, or  more  probably  as  a  member  of  an  extinct  class, 
is  as  important  in  matter  and  in  tone  as  it  is  in  style 
is  more  doubtful.     The  style  itself,  as  to  which  there 


382  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

is  no  doubt,  injiy  perhaps  colour  the  matter  too  much. 
All  that  can  be  safely  said  is  that  it  reads  with  dis- 
tinctly modern  effect  after  Heliodorus  and  Achilles, 
Lono'us  and  Xenophon      The  story  is  not 

Its  story.  '^  .     .    -^  -^ 

much.  Hysminias,  a  beautiful  youth  of 
the  city  of  Eurycomis,  is  chosen  for  a  religious  embassy 
or  Jcerultcia  to  the  neighbouring  town  of  Aulicomis. 
The  task  of  acting  as  host  to  him  falls  on  one  Sosthenes, 
whose  daughter  Hysmine  strikes  Hysminias  with  love 
at  first  sight.  The  progress  of  their  passion  is  facilitated 
by  the  pretty  old  habit  of  girls  acting  as  cupbearers, 
and  favoured  by  accident  to  no  small  degree,  the 
details  of  the  courtship  being  sometimes  luscious,  but 
adjusted  to  less  fearless  old  fashions  than  the  wooings 
of  Chloe  or  of  Melitta.  Adventures  by  land  and  sea 
follow ;  and,  of  course,  a  happy  ending. 

But  what  is  really  important  is  the  way  in  which 

these  things  are  handled.     It  has  as  mere  story-telling 

little  merit :    the  question  is  whether  the 

Its  handling.  .    .  i         i         -i         i 

spirit,  the  conduct,  the  details,  do  not  show 
a  temper  much  more  akin  to  mediaeval  than  to  classical 
treatment.  I  think  they  do.  Hysminias  is  rather  a 
silly,  and  more  than  rather  a  chicken-hearted,  fellow ; 
his  conduct  on  board  ship  when  his  beloved  incurs  the 
fate  of  Jonah  is  eminently  despicable :  but  then  he 
was  countryman  ex  hypothesi  of  Mourzoufle,  not  of 
Villehardouin.  The  "  battailous  "  spirit  of  the  West  is 
not  to  be  expected  in  a  Byzantine  sophist.  Whether 
something  of  its  artistic  and  literary  spirit  is  not  to 
be  detected  in  him  is  a  more  doubtful  question.  For 
my  part,  I  cannot  read  of  Hysmine  without  being  re- 


THE  LITEEATURE  OF  THE  rENIXRULAS.     383 

minded  of  Nicolette,  as  I  am  never  reminded  in  other 
parts  of  the  Scriptores  JUrutici. 

Yet,  experiment  or  remainder,  imitation  or  original, 
one  cannot  but  feel  tliat  the  book,  like  all  tlie  litera- 
ture to  which  it  belongs,  has  more  of  the 

Its  " deradriice.'  ^ 

marks  of  death  than  of  life  in  it.  Its  very 
elegances  are  "  rose-coloured  curtains  for  the  doctors  " 
— tlie  masque  of  a  moribund  art.  Some  of  them  may 
have  been  borrowed  by.  rather  than  from,  younger  and 
hopefuller  craftsmanship,  but  the  general  effect  is  the 
same.  We  are  here  face  to  face  with  those  phenomena 
of  "  decadence,"  which,  though  they  have  often  been 
exaggerated  and  wrongly  interpreted,  yet  surely  exist 
and  reappear  at  intervals  —  the  contortions  of  style 
that  cannot  afford  to  be  natural,  the  tricks  of  word 
borrowed  from  literary  reminiscence  {6\o<;  itself  in  this 
way  is  at  least  as  old  as  Lucian),  the  tormented  effort 
at  detail  of  description;  at  "  analysis ''  of  thought  and 
feeling,  of  incident  and  moral.  The  cant  phrase  aliout 
being  "71^  trop  tarcl  dans  un  monde  trojj  vuiix"  has 
been  true  of  many  persons,  while  more  still  have 
affected  to  believe  it  true  of  themselves,  since  Eusta- 
thius  t  it  is  not  much  truer  of  any  one  tlian  of  him. 

Curious  as  such  specimens  of  a  dying  literature  may 
be,  it  cannot  but  be  refreshing  to  go  westward  from  it 
to  the  nascent  literatures  of  Italy  and  of  Spain,  litera- 
tures which  have  a  future  instead  of  merely  a  past, 
and  which,  independently  of  that  somewhat  illegiti- 
mate advantage,  have  characteristics  not  unable  to 
bear  comparison  with  those  of  the  past,  even  had  it 
existed. 


384  ETTI^OPEAN   LTTEF.ATUEE,   1100-1:500. 

Between  the  earliest  Italian  and  the  earliest  Spanish 
literature,  however,  there  are  striking  differences  to  be 
Lateness  of  noted.  Persons  ignorant  of  the  usual  course 
itciiiari.  Qf  literary  history  might  expect  in  Italian 
a  regular  and  unbroken  development,  literary  as  well 
as  linguistic,  of  Latin.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
earliest  vernacular  literature  in  Italy  shows  very  little 
trace  of  classical  influence^:  and  though  that  influence 
appears  strongly  in  the  age  immediately  succeeding 
ours,  and  helps  to  produce  the  greatest  achievements 
of  the  language,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  its 
results  were  wholly  beneficial.  In  the  earliest  Italian, 
or  rather  Sicilian,  poetry  quite  different  influences  are 
perceptible.  One  of  them — the  influence  of  the  litera- 
tures of  France,  both  Southern  and  Northern — is  quite 
certain  and  incontestable.  The  intercourse  between 
the  various  Eomanee-speaking  nations  surrounding  the 
western  Mediterranean  was  always  close ;  and  the 
development  of  Proven(^al  literature  far  anticipated, 
both  in  date  and  form,  that  of  any  other.  Moreover, 
some  northern  influence  was  undoubtedly  communi- 
cated by  the  Norman  conquests  of  the  eleventh  century. 

^  I  have  not  thought  it  proper,  considering  the  system  of  excluding 
mere  hypothesis  which  I  have  adopted,  to  give  much  place  here  to 
tliat  interesting  theory  of  modern  "Romanists"  which  will  have  it 
tliat  Latin  classical  literature  was  never  much  more  than  a  literary 
artifice,  and  that  the  modern  Romance  tongues  and  literatures  connect 
directly,  through  that  famous  lingua  romana  rustica  and  earlier  forms 
of  it,  vigorous  though  inarticulate,  in  classical  times  themselves,  with 
primitive  poetry — "  Saturnian,"  "  Fescennine,"  and  what  not.  All 
this  is  interesting,  and  it  cannot  be  said,  in  the  face  of  inscriptions,  of 
the  scraps  of  popular  speech  in  the  classics,  &c. ,  to  be  entirely  guess- 
work.    But  a  great  deal  of  it  is. 


THE   LITERATURE   OF   THE    PENINSULAS.  385 

But  two  other  strains — one  of  whicli  has  long  been 
asserted  witli  the  utmost  positiveness,  while  the  latter 
has  been  a  favourite  subject  of  Italian  patriotism  since 
the  political  unification  of  the  country — are  much  more 
dubious.  Because  it  is  tolerably  certain  that  Italian 
poetry  in  the  modern  literary  sense  arose  in  Sicily, 
and  because  Sicily  was  beyond  all  doubt  almost  more 
Saracen  than  Frank  up  to  the  twelfth  century,  it  was 
long,  and  has  not  quite  ceased  to  be,  the  fashion  to 
assign  a  great,  if  not  the  greatest,  part  to  Arabian 
literature.  Not  merely  the  sonnet  (which  seems  to 
have  arisen  in  the  two  Sicilies),  but  even  the  entire 
system  of  rhymed  lyrical  verse,  common  in  the  modern 
languages,  has  been  thus  referred  to  the  East  by  some. 
This  matter  can  probably  never  be  pronounced 
upon,  with  complete  satisfaction  to  readers,  except  by  a 
The  "Saracen'-  literary  critic  who  is  equally  competent  in 
thrnry.  Eastcm  and  Western  history  and  literature, 

a  person  who  certainly  has  not  shown  himself  as  yet. 
What  can  be  said  with  some  confidence  is,  that  the 
Saracen  theory  of  Literature,  like  the  Saracen  theory 
of  Architecture,  so  soon  as  it  is  carried  beyond  the 
advancing  of  a  possible  but  slight  and  very  indeter- 
minate influence  and  colouring,  has  scarcely  the 
slightest  foundation  in  known  facts,  and  is  very 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  reconcile  with  facts  that 
are  known,  while  it  is  intrinsically  improbable  to  the 
very  highest  degree.  As  has  been  pointed  out  above, 
the  modern  prosody  of  Europe  is  quite  easily  and 
logically  explicable  as  the  result  of  the  juxtaposition 
of  the  Latin  rhythms  of  the  Church  service,  and  the 

2  B 


386  EUEOPEAN   LITEEATURE,    1100-1300. 

verse  systems  indigenous  in  the  different  barbaric 
nations.  That  the  peculiar  cast  and  colour  of  early 
Italian  poetry  may  owe  something  of  that  difference 
which  it  exhibits,  even  in  comparison  with  Provencal, 
much  more  with  French,  most  of  all  with  Teutonic 
poetry,  to  contact  with  Arabian  literature,  is  not 
merely  possible  l)ut  probable.  Anything  more  must 
be  regarded  as  not  proven,  and  not  even  likely. 

Of  late,  however,  attempts  have  been  made  to  assign 
the  greater  part  of  the  matter  to  no  foreign  influence 
Tiie  "folk-song"  whatcvcr,  but  to  uativc  folk  -  songs,  in 
theory.  which  at  the  present  time,  and  no  doubt 

for  a  long  time  back,  Italy  is  beyond  all  question  rich 
above  the  wont  of  European  countries.  But  this 
attempt,  however  interesting  and  patriotic,  labours 
under  the  same  fatal  difficulties  which  beset  similar 
attempts  in  other  languages.  It  may  be  regarded  as 
perfectly  certain  that  we  do  not  possess  any  Italian 
popular  poem  in  any  form  which  can  have  existed 
prior  to  the  thirteenth  century ;  and  only  such  poems 
would  be  of  any  use.  To  argue,  as  is  always  argued 
in  such  cases,  that  existing  examples  show,  by  this 
or  that  characteristic,  that  in  other  forms  they  must 
have  existed  in  the  twelfth  century  or  even  earlier,  is 
only  an  instance  of  that  learned  childishness  which 
unfortunately  rules  so  widely  in  literary,  though  it 
has  been  partly  expelled  from  general,  history.  "  May 
have  been  "  and  "  must  have  been  "  are  phrases  of  no 
account  to  a  sound  literary  criticism,  which  insists 
upon  "  was."  And  in  reference  to  this  particular 
subject  of  Early  Italian   Poetry  the  reader  may  be 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  PENINSULAS.     387 

referred  to  the  very  learned  dissertation  ^  of  Signor 
Alessandro  d'Ancona  on  the  Contrasto  of 
Ciullo  d'Alcamo,  which  has  been  commonly 
regarded  as  the  first  specimen  of  Italian  poetry,  and 
has  been  claimed  for  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  if  not  the  end  of  the  twelfth.  He  will,  if  the 
gods  have  made  him  in  the  least  critical  rise  from  the 
perusal  with  the  pretty  clear  notion  that  whether 
Ciullo  dAlcamo  was  "  such  a  person,"  or  whether  he 
was  Cielo  dal  Camo ;  whether  the  Contrasto  was 
written  on  the  bridge  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
century,  or  fifty  years  later ;  whether  the  poet  was 
a  warrior  of  high  degree  or  an  obscure  folk-singer; 
whether  his  dialect  has  been  Tuscanised  or  is  still 
Sicilian  with  French  admixture, — these  are  things  not 
to  be  found  out,  things  of  mere  opinion  and  hypothesis, 
things  good  to  write  programmes  and  theses  on,  but 
only  to  be  touched  in  the  most  gingerly  manner  by 
sober  history. 

To  the  critic,  then,  who  deals  with  Dante — and 
especially  to  him,  inasmuch  as  he  has  the  privilege 
of  dealing  with  that  priceless  document,  the  Dc 
V'ulgari  Eloquio^ — may  be  left  Ciullo,  or  Cielo,  and 
his  successors  the  Frederician  set,  from  the  Emperor 
himself    and    Piero    delle   Vigne  downwards.      More 

^  See  Studj  suUa  Lctleratura  Jtaliana  del  Primi  Secoli.  2<1  ed. 
Milan  :  Fratelli  Treves,  1891.     Pp.  241-458. 

2  Obtainable  in  many  forms,  separately  and  with  Dante's  works. 
The  Latin  is  easy  enough,  but  there  is  a  good  English  ti-anslation  bj- 
A.  G.  Ferrers  Howell  (London,  1890).  Those  who  like  facsimiles 
may  find  one  of  the  Grenoble  MS.,  with  a  learned  introduction, 
edited  by  MM.   Maignion  and  I'rcjmpt  (Venice,  1892). 


388  EUKOPEAN  LITEKATUEE,   1100-1300, 

especially  to  him  belong  the  poets  of  the  late 
thirteenth  century,  Dante's  own  immediate  prede- 
cessors, contemporaries,  and  in  a  way  masters  — 
Guinicelli,  Cavalcanti,  Sinibaldi,  and  Guittone  d'Arezzo 
(to  whom  the  canonical  form  of  the  sonnet  used  at 
one  time  to  be  attributed,  and  may  be  again) ;  Bru- 
nette Latini,  of  fiery  memory ;  Fra  Jacopone,^  great 
in  Latin,  eccentric  in  Italian,  and  others.  It  will  be 
not  merely  sufficient,  but  in  every  way  desirable,  here 
to  content  ourselves  with  an  account  of  the  general 
characteristics  of  this  poetry  (contemporary  prose, 
though  existent,  is  of  little  importance),  and  to 
preface  this  by  some  remarks  on  the  general 
influences  and  contributions  of  material  with  which 
Italian  literature  started. 

There  is  no  valid  reason  for  doubting  that  these 
influences  and  materials  were  mainly  French.  As 
Heavy  deit  ^as  been  partly  noted  in  a  former  chapter, 
to  France,  ^^q  French  chansons  de  geste  made  an  early 
and  secure  conquest  of  the  Italian  ear  in  the  north, 
partly  in  translation,  partly  in  the  still  more  vm- 
mistakable  form  of  macaronic  Italianised  French. 
It  has  indeed  been  pointed  out  that  the  Sicilian 
school  was  to  some  extent  preceded  by  that  of  the 
Trevisan  March,  the  most  famous  member  of  which 
was  Sordello.  It  would  appear,  however,  that  this 
school  was  even  more  distinctly  and  exclusively  a 
branch  of  Proven(^al  than  the  Sicilian ;  and  that  the 

^  Authorities  differ  oddly  on  Jacopone  da  Todi  {v.  p.  8)  in  his 
Italian  work.  Professor  d'Andrea's  book,  cited  above,  opens  with  an 
excellent  essay  on  liim. 


THE  LITERATUKE  OF  THE  PENINSULAS.     389 

special  characteristic  of  the  latter  did  not  appear  iu 
it.  The  Carlovingian  poems  (arid  to  some,  though  a 
much  less,  extent  the  Arthurian)  made  a  deep  im- 
pression both  on  popular  and  on  cultivated  Italian 
taste  as  a  matter  of  subject;  but  their  form,  after 
its  first  results  in  variation  and  translation,  was  not 
perpetuated  ;  and  when  Italian  epic  made  its  appear- 
ance some  centuries  later,  it  inclined  for  the  most 
part  to  burlesque,  or  at  least  to  the  tragi-comic, 
until  the  serious  genius  of  Tasso  gave  it  a  new,  but 
perhaps  a  not  wholly  natural,  direction. 

In  that  earliest,  really  national,  and  vernacular 
school,  however,  which  has  been  the  chief  subject  of 
discourse,  the  direction  was  mainly  and  almost  wholly 
towards  lyric ;  and  the  supremacy  of  the  sonnet  and 
the  canzone  is  the  less  surprising  because  their  rivals 
were  for  the  most  part  less  accomplished  examples 
of  the  same  kind.  The  Contrasto'^  of  Ciullo  itself  is 
a  poem  in  lyric  stanzas  of  five  lines — three  of  six- 
teen syllables,  rhymed  a,  and  two  hendecasyllabics, 
,^ , ,         ,  rhymed  h.      The  rhymes  are  fairly  exact. 

Yet  form  and  "  •'  j  ' 

spirit  both  though  somctimcs  loose,  o  and  u,  e  and  i, 
being  permitted  to  pair.  The  poem,  a  simple 
discourse  or  dispute  between  two  lovers,  something 
in  the  style  of  some  French  imstourelles,  displays  how- 
ever, with  some  of  the  exaggeration  and  stock  phrase 
of  Provengal  (perhaps  we  might  say  of  all)  love-poetry, 
little  or  nothing  of  that  peculiar  mystical  tone  which 
we   have   been   accustomed   to   associate   with   early 

1  The  text  with  coinmeut,  stanza  by  stauza,  is  to  be  fuund  iu  the 
book  cited  above. 


390  EUKOPEAJSr   LITEKATUKE,    llOU-1300. 

Italian  verse,  chiefly  represented,  as  it  is  to  most 
readers,  by  the  Vita  Nuova,  where  the  spirit  is  slightly 
altered  in  itself,  and  speaks  in  the  mouth  of  a  poet 
greater  in  his  weakest  moments  than  the  whole  genera- 
tion from  Ciullo  to  Guittone  in  their  strongest.  This 
spirit,  showing  itself  in  the  finer  and  more  masculine 
form  in  Dante  himself,  in  the  more  feminine  and 
weaker  in  Petrarch,  not  merely  gives  us  sublime  or 
exquisite  poetry  in  the  fourteenth  century,  but  in  the 
sixteenth  contributes  very  largely  to  launch,  on  fresh 
careers  of  achievement,  the  whole  poetry  of  Prance  and 
of  England.  But  it  is  fair  to  acknowledge  its  presence 
in  Dante's  predecessors,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
confess  that  they  themselves  do  not  seem  to  have 
learned  it  from  any  one,  or  at  least  from  any  single 
master  or  group  of  masters.  The  Provencal  poets 
deify  passion,  and  concentrate  themselves  wholly 
upon  it;  but  it  is  seldom,  indeed,  that  we  find  the 
"  metaphysical ''  touch  in  the  Provencals  proper.  And 
it  is  this  —  this  blending  of  love  and  religion,  of 
scholasticism  and  tninncdicnst  (to  borrow  a  word 
wanted  in  other  languages  than  that  in  which  it  ex- 
ists)— that  is  attributed  by  the  partisans  of  the  East 
to  Arabian  influence,  or  at  least  to  Arabian  contact. 
Some  stress  has  been  laid  on  the  testimony  of  Ibn 
Zobeir  about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  and 
consequently  not  long  before  even  the  latest  date 
assigned  to  Ciullo,  that  Alcamo  itself  was  entirely 
Mussulman  in  belief. 

On  these  points  it  is  not  possible  to   decide :    the 
point   on    which    to   lay  the    finger   for   our  present 


THE   LITEKATUIIE   OF   THE   PENINSULAS.  391 

purpose  is  that  the  contribution  of  Italy  at  this  time 

was,  on  the  one  hand,  the  further  refine- 

fiffcmit"  ^"'  ment  of  the  Provenc^'al  attention  to  form, 

Eiiropeun       ^^^  ^jjg  production  of  one  capital  instru- 

coimtries.  •*■ 

ment  of  European  poetry  —  the  sonnet ; 
on  the  other,  the  conveyance,  by  means  of  this  in- 
strument and  others,  of  a  further,  and  in  one  way 
almost  final,  variation  of  the  poetic  expression  of  love. 
It  is  of  the  first  importance  to  note  the  characteristics, 
in  different  nations  at  nearly  the  same  time,  of  this 
rise  of  lyrical  love-poetry.  We  find  it  in  Northern  and 
Southern  France,  probably  at  about  the  same  time ; 
in  Germany  and  Italy  somewhat  later,  and  almost 
certainly  in  a  state  of  pupilship  to  the  French.  All, 
in  different  ways,  display  a  curious  and  delightful 
metrical  variety,  as  if  the  poet  were  trying  to  express 
the  eternal  novelty,  combined  with  the  eternal  one- 
ness, of  passion  by  variations  of  metrical  form.  In 
each  language  these  variations  reflect  national  peculi- 
arities—  in  Northern  French  and  German  irregular 
bursts  with  a  multiplicity  of  inarticulate  refrain,  in 
Provencal  and  Italian  a  statelier  and  more  graceful 
but  somewhat  more  monotonous  arrangement  and  pro- 
portion. 

And  the  differences  of  spirit  are  equally  noticeable, 
though  one  must,  as  always,  be  careful  against 
generalising  too  rashly  as  to  their  identity  with 
supposed  national  characteristics.  The  innumerable 
love-poems  of  the  trouvdrcs,  pathetic  sometimes,  and 
sometimes  impassioned,  are  yet,  as  a  rule,  cheerful, 
not  very  deep,  verging  not  seldom  on  i)ure  comedy. 


392  EUROPEAN  LITERATUHE,    1100-1300. 

The  so-called  mouotouous  enthusiasm  of  the  trouba- 
dour, his  stock-images,  his  musical  form,  sul)lime  to  a 
certain  extent  the  sensual  side  of  love,  but  confine 
themselves  to  that  side  merely,  as  a  rule,  or  leave  it 
only  to  indulge  in  the  purely  fantastic. 

Of  those  who  borrowed  from  them,  the  Germans, 
as  we  should  expect,  lean  rather  to  the  Northern 
type,  but  vary  it  with  touches  of  purity,  and  other 
touches  of  religion ;  the  Italians  to  the  Southern, 
exalting  it  into  a  mysticism  which  can  hardly  be 
called  devotional,  though  it  at  times  wears  the  garb 
of  devotion.!  Among  those  collections  for  which  the 
student  of  letters  pines,  not  the  least  desirable  would 
be  a  corims  of  the  lyric  poets  of  Europe  during  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  We  should  then 
see — after  a  fashion  difficult  if  not  impossible  in  the 
sporadic  study  of  texts  edited  piecemeal,  and  often 
overlaid  with  comment  not  of  the  purely  literary 
kind — at  once  the  general  similarity  and  the  local 
or  individual  exceptions,  the  filiation  of  form,  the 
diffusion  of  spirit.  No  division  of  literature,  perhaps, 
would  serve  better  as  a  kind  of  chrestomathy  for 
illustrating  the  positions  on  which  the  scheme 
of  this  series  is  based.  And  though  it  is  over- 
shadowed by  the  achievements  of  its  own  pupils ; 
though  it  has  a  double  portion  of  the  medijeval  defect 
of  "  school  "-work — of  the  almost  tedious  similarity 
of  different  men's  manner — the  Italian  poetry,  which 
is  practically  the  Italian  literature,  of  the  thirteenth 

^  "  Sacro  erotismo,"  "  baccauale  cristiano,"  are  phrases  of  Professor 

d'Aiidrea's. 


THE  LITEKATUKE  OF  THE  PENINSULAS.     393 

century   would   be   not  tlie   least  interesting   part  of 
such  a  corpus. 

The  Spanish  literature  ^  with  which  we  have  to  do 
is  probably  inferior  in  bulk  even  to  that  of  Italy ;  it 
Podtionof  is  certainly  far  less  rich  in  named  and 
Spanish.  more  or  less  known  authors,  while  it  is 
a  mere  drop  as  compared  with  the  Dead  Sea  of 
Byzantine  writing.  But  by  virtue  of  at  least  one 
really  great  composition,  the  famous  Pocma  del  Cid, 
it  ranks  higher  than  either  of  these  groups  in  sheer 
literary  estimation,  while  from  the  point  of  view  of 
literary  history  it  is  perhaps  more  interesting  than 
the  Italian,  and  certainly  far  more  interesting  than 
the  Greek.  It  does  not  rank  with  French  as  an 
instance  of  real  literary  preponderance  and  chieftain- 
ship ;  or  with  German  as  an  example  of  the  sudden 
if  short  blossoming  of  a  particular  period  and  dialect 
into  great  if  not  wholly  original  literary  prominence ; 

^  Spanish  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  shared,  to  an  extent  commen- 
sui'ate  with  its  interest,  in  the  benefit  of  recent  study  of  the  older 
forms  of  modern  languages.  There  is,  at  any  rate  in  EngUsh,  and 
I  think  elsewhere,  still  nothing  better  than  Ticknor's  History  of 
Spaniah  Literature  (3  vols.,  London,  1849,  and  leprinted  since),  in  the 
early  part  of  which  he  had  the  invaluable  assistance  of  the  late  Don 
Pascual  de  Gayangos.  Some  scattered  jjapers  may  be  found  in  Jio- 
mania.  Fortunately,  almost  all  the  known  litei-ary  materials  for  our 
I^eriod  are  to  be  found  in  Sanchez'  Pocsias  Castcllanas  Antcriorcs  aZ 
Sifjlo  XV.,  the  Paris  (1842)  reprint  of  which  by  Oclioa,  with  a  few 
valuable  additions,  1  have  used.  Tiie  Poniw  del  Cid  is,  except  in  this 
old  edition,  rather  discreditably  inaccessible — Volliniiller's  German 
edition  (Halle,  1879),  the  only  modern  or  critical  one,  being,  I  under- 
stand, out  of  print.  It  would  be  a  good  deed  if  the  Clarendon  Press 
would  furnish  students  with  this,  the  only  rival  of  Bco^vulf  hiid  the 
Chanson  de  Roland  in  the  combination  of  anti(iuity  and  interest. 


394  EUROPEAN   LITEKATURE,    1100-1300. 

much  less  with  Icelandic  and  Provenc^-al,  as  containing 
a  "  smooth  and  round  "  expression  of  certain  definite 
characteristics  of  literature  and  life  once  for  all  em- 
bodied. It  has  to  give  way  not  merely  to  Provencal, 
but  to  Italian  itself  as  an  example  of  early  scholar- 
ship in  literary  form.  But  it  makes  a  most  interest- 
ing pair  to  English  as  an  instance  of  vigorous  and 
genuine  national  literary  development ;  while,  if  it  is 
inferior  to  English,  as  showing  that  fatal  departmental 
or  provincial  separation,  that  "  particularism  "  which 
has  in  many  ways  been  so  disastrous  to  the  Peninsula, 
it  once  more,  by  virtue  of  the  Pocma,  far  excels  our 
own  production  of  the  period  in  positive  achievement, 
and  foretells  the  masterpieces  of  the  national  poetry 
in  a  way  very  different  from  any  that  can  be  said 
to  be  shown  in  Layamon  or  the  Ancren  Bnvle,  even 
in  the  Arthurian  romances  and  the  early  lyrics. 

The  earliest  literature  which,  in  the  wide  sense,  can 
be  called  Spanish  divides  itself  into  three  heads — 

Catalan-  ProvcnQal  -  Catalan  ;  Galician  -  Portuguese ; 
Proven<;ai.  ^^^  Castiliau  or  Spanish  proper.  Not 
merely  Catalonia  itself,  but  Aragon,  Navarre,  and 
even  Valencia,  were  linguistically  for  centuries  mere 
outlying  provinces  of  the  langue  d'oc.  The  political 
circumstances  which  attended  the  dying  -  out  of  the 
Provencal  school  at  home,  for  a  time  even  encouraged 
the  continuance  of  ProvenQal  literature  in  Spain :  and 
to  a  certain  extent  Spanish  and  Provencal  appear  to 
have  been  written,  if  not  spoken,  bilingually  by  the 
same  authors.  But  for  the  general  purpose  of  this 
book   the  fact  of  the  persistence  of  the  "  Limousin " 


THE   LITERATUIIE   OF   THE   PENINSULAS.  395 

tongue  in  Catalonia  and  (strongly  dialected)  in  Val- 
encia having  been  once  noted,  not  nmcli  further 
notice  need  be  taken  of  this  division. 

So  also  we  may,  with  a  brief  distinctive  notice,  pass 
by  the  Galician  dialects  which  found  their  perfected 

Gaiician-     literary  form  later  in  Portuguese.     No  im- 

Portugucsc.  portaut  early  literature  remains  in  Galician, 
and  of  Portuguese  itself  there  does  not  seem  to  be 
anything  certainly  dating  before  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, or  anything  even  probably  attributed  to  an 
earlier  time  except  a  certain  number  of  ballads,  as 
to  the  real  antiquity  of  which  a  sane  literary  criticism 
has  always  to  reiterate  the  deepest  and  most  irremov- 
able doubts.  The  fact  of  the  existence  of  this  dialect, 
and  of  its  development  later  into  the  language  of 
Camoens,  is  of  high  interest:  the  positive  documents 
which  at  this  time  it  offers  for  comment  are  very 
scanty  indeed. 

With  Castilian — that   is  to  say,  Spanisli   proper — 

the  case  is  very  different.     It  cannot  claim  any  great 

antiquity :  and  as  is  the  case  with  Italian, 

Castilian. 

and  to  a  less  degree  with  French  also,  the 
processes  by  which  it  came  into  existence  out  of  Latin 
are  hid  from  us  to  a  degree  surprising,  even  when  we 
remember  the  j)olitical  and  social  welter  in  which 
Europe  lay  between  the  fifth  and  the  eleventh  cen- 
turies. It  is,  of  course,  a  most  natural  and  constant 
consideration  that  the  formation  of  literary  languages 
was  delayed  in  the  Koniance  -  speaking  countries  by 
the  fact  that  everybody  of  any  education  at  all  had 
Latin  ready  to  his  hands.     And  the  exceptional  cir- 


396  EUEOPEAN   LITEEATUEE,   1100-1300. 

cumstances  of  Spain,  which,  after  hardly  settling 
down  under  the  Visigothic  conquest,  was  whelmed 
afresh  by  the  Moorish  invasion,  have  not  been  ex- 
cessively insisted  upon  by  the  authorities  who  have 
dealt  witli  the  subject.  But  still  it  cannot  but  strike 
us  as  peculiar  that  the  document — the  famous  Charter 
of  Aviles,^  which  plays  in  the  history  of  Spanish 
something  like  the  same  part  which  the  Eulalia  hymn 
and  the  Strasburg  Oaths  play  in  French — dates  only 
from  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  more  than 
three  hundred  years  after  the  Strasburg  interchange, 
and  at  a  time  when  French  was  not  merely  a  regularly 
constituted  language,  but  already  had  no  inconsider- 
able literature.  It  is  true  that  the  Aviles  document 
is  not  quite  so  jargonish  as  the  Strasburg,  but  the 
same  mark — the  presence  of  undigested  Latin — ap- 
pears in  both. 

It  is,  however,  fair  to  remember  that  prose  is  almost 
invariably  later  than  poetry,  and  that  official  prose 
of  all  periods  has  a  tendency  to  the  barbarous.  If 
the  Aviles  charter  be  genuine,  and  of  its  assigned 
date,  it  does  not  follow  that  at  the  very  same  time 
poetry  of  a  much  less  uncouth  character  was  not 
being  composed  in  Spanish.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact 
we  have,  independently  of  the  ballads,  the  great 
Poema  del  Cid,  which  has  sometimes  been  supposed 
to  be  of  antiquity  equal  to  this,  and  which  can  hardly 
be  more  than  some  fifty  years  later. 

As  to  the  ballads,  what  has  been  said  about  those 
in  Portuguese  must  be  repeated  at  somewhat  greater 

^  Extracts  of  this  appear  in  Tickuor,  Appendix  A.,  iii.  352,  note, 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  PENINSULAS.     397 

length.     There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  these  ballads 
(which   are  well  known  even   to  English 

Ballads?        ^  ° 

readers  by  the  masterly  paraphrases  of 
Lockhart)  are  among  the  finest  of  their  kind.  They 
rank  with,  and  perhaps  above,  the  best  of  the  Scottish 
poems  of  the  same  class.  But  we  have  practically, 
it  would  seem,  no  earlier  authority  for  them  than  the 
great  CanrAoneroa  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  is,  of 
course,  said  that  the  Cronica  General  (see  ^yost),  which 
is  three  centuries  earlier,  was  in  part  compiled  from 
these  ballads.  But,  in  the  first  place,  we  do  not  know 
that  this  was  the  fact,  or  that  the  ballads  were  not 
compiled  from  the  Chronicles,  or  from  traditions 
which  the  Chronicles  embodied.  And  in  the  second 
place,  if  the  Chronicles  were  compiled  from  ballads, 
we  do  not  know  that  these  ballads,  as  pieces  of  finished 
literature  and  apart  from  their  subjects,  were  any- 
thing at  all  like  the  ballads  that  we  possess.  This 
last  consideration  —  an  uncomfortable  one,  but  one 
which  the  critic  is  bound  to  urge — at  once  disposes 
of,  or  reduces  to-  a  minimum,  the  value  of  the  much- 
vaunted  testimony  of  a  Latin  poem,  said  to  date 
before  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century,  that 
"Roderic,  called  Mio  Cid"  was  sung  about.  No 
doubt  he  was ;  and  no  doubt,  as  the  expression  Mio 
Cicl  is  not  a  translation  from  the  Arabic,  but  a  quite 
evidently  genuine  vernacularity,  he  was  sung  of  in 
those  terms.  But  the  testimony  leaves  us  as  much 
in  doubt  as  ever  about  the  age  of  the  existing  Cid 
ballads.  And  if  this  be  the  case  about  the  Cid 
ballads,  the   subject  of   which  did   not  die    till   hard 


398  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

upon  the  opening  of  the  twelfth  century  itself,  or 
about  those  concerning  the  Infantes  of  Lara,  how  much 
more  must  it  be  so  with  those  that  deal  with  such 
subjects  as  Bernardo  del  Carpio  and  the  Charlemagne 
invasion,  three  hundred  years  earlier,  when  it  is 
tolerably  certain  that  there  was  nothing  at  all  re- 
sembling what  we  now  call  Spanish  ?  It  seems  some- 
times to  be  thought  that  the  antiquity  of  the  subject 
of  a  ballad  comports  in  some  strange  fashion  the 
antiquity  of  the  ballad  itself ;  than  which  nothing 
can  be  much  more  disputable.  Indeed  the  very  metre 
of  the  ballads  themselves — which,  though  simple,  is 
by  no  means  of  a  very  primitive  character,  and  re- 
presents the  "  rubbing  down "  of  popular  dialect  and 
unscholarly  prosody  for  a  long  time  against  the 
regular  structure  of  Latin  —  disproves  the  extreme 
earliness  of  the  poems  in  anything  like  their  present 
form.  The  comparatively  uncouth,  though  not  law- 
less metres  of  early  Teutonic  poetry  are  in  them- 
selves warrants  of  their  antiquity  :  the  regularity,  not 
strait-laced  but  unmistakable,  of  the  Spanish  ballads  is 
at  least  a  strong  suggestion  that  they  are  not  very 
early 

At  any  rate  there  is  no  sort  of  proof  that  they 
are  early ;  and  in  this  history  it  has  been  made  a 
The  Poema  ^'^^^^  ^^  demand  proof,  or  at  least  the  very 
del  ci(i.  strongest  probability.  If  there  be  any 
force  in  the  argument  at  the  end  of  the  last  para- 
graph, it  tells  (unless,  indeed,  the  latest  critical  hy- 
pothesis be  adopted,  of  which  more  presently)  as  much 
in  favour  of  the  antiquity  of  the  Poema  del  Cid  as  it 


THE   LITERATUKE   OF   THE   PENINSULAS.  399 

tells  against  that  of  the  ballads.  This  piece,  which 
has  come  down  to  us  in  a  mutilated  condition,  though 
it  does  not  seem  likely  that  its  present  length  (3V44 
lines)  has  been  very  greatly  affected  by  the  mutila- 
tions, has  been  regarded  as  dating  not  earlier  than 
the  middle  of  the  twelfth  or  later  than  the  middle 
of  the  thirteenth  century — that  is  to  say,  in  the  first 
case,  within  a  lifetime  of  the  events  it  professes  to 
deal  with ;  in  the  second,  at  scarcely  more  than  two 
lifetimes  from  them.  The  historical  personality  of 
Euy  Diaz  de  Bivar,  el  Cid  Campeador  (?  1040-1099), 
does  not  concern  us,  though  it  is  perfectly  well  estab- 
lished in  general  by  the  testimony  of  his  enemies, 
as  well  as  by  that  of  his  countrymen,  and  is  indeed 
almost  unique  in  history  as  that  of  a  national  hero 
at  once  of  history  and  of  romance.  The  Eoderic  who 
regained  what  a  Eoderic  had  lost  may  have  been — 
must  have  been,  indeed — presented  with  many  facts 
and  achievements  which  he  never  performed,  and 
there  may  be  no  small  admixture  of  these  in  the 
Poema  itself ;  but  that  does  not  matter  at  all  to 
literature.  It  would  not,  strictly  speaking,  matter 
to  literature  if  he  had  never  existed.  But  not  every 
one  can  live  up  to  this  severe  standard  in  things 
literary ;  and  it  is  undoubtedly  a  comfort  to  the 
natural  man  to  know  that  the  Cid  certainly  did  exist, 
and  that,  to  all  but  certainty,  his  blood  runs  in  the 
veins  of  the  Queen  of  England  and  of  the  Emperor 
of  Austria,  not  to  mention  the  King  of  Spain,  to- 
day. 

But  in  the  criticism  of  his  poetical  liistcjry  this  is 


400  EUKOPEAN   LITERATUKE,    1100-1300. 

in    strictness    irrelevant.      It    is    unlucky    for    that 
criticism  that  Southey  and  Ticknor  —  the 

A  Sjyanish  ,    _  '' 

chanson  de     two  bcst   critics,   not   merely   in   English 
^''•''*''"  but    in    any    language,    who    have    dealt 

with  Spanish  literature  —  were  quite  unacquainted 
with  the  French  cJiansons  de  gcste ;  while  of  late, 
discussion  of  the  Foema,  as  of  other  early  Spanish 
literature,  has  been  chiefly  abandoned  to  philologists. 
No  one  familiar  with  these  chansons  (the  greatest  and 
oldest  of  which,  the  Chanson  dc  Roland,  was  to  all 
but  a  certainty  in  existence  when  Paiy  Diaz  was  in 
his  cradle,  and  a  hundred  years  before  the  Poema 
was  written)  can  fail  to  see  in  a  moment  that  this 
latter  is  itself  a  chanson  de  gcste.  It  was  written 
much  nearer  to  the  facts  than  any  one  of  its  French 
analogues,  except  those  of  the  Crusading  cycle,  and 
it  therefore  had  at  least  the  chance  of  sticking  much 
closer  to  those  facts.  ISTor  is  there  much  doubt  that 
it  does.  "We  may  give  up  as  many  as  we  please 
of  its  details ;  we  may  even,  if,  not  pleasing,  we 
choose  to  obey  the  historians,  give  up  that  famous 
and  delightful  episode  of  the  Counts  of  Carrion,  which 
indeed  is  not  so  much  an  episode  as  the  main  subject 
of  the  greater  part  of  the  poem.  But — partly  because 
of  its  nearness  to  the  subject,  partly  because  of  the 
more  intense  national  belief  in  the  hero,  most  of  all, 
perhaps,  because  the  countrymen  of  Cervantes  already 
possessed  that  faculty  of  individual,  not  merely  of 
typical,  characterisation  which  has  been,  as  a  rule, 
denied  to  the  countrymen  of  Corneille — the  poem  is 
far  more  alive  than  the  not  less  heroic  histories  of 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  PENINSULAS.     401 

Eoncesvaux  or  of  Aliscans.  Even  in  the  Nihehingen- 
liecl,  to  which  it  has  been  so  often  compared,  the  men 
(not  the  women — there  the  Teutonic  genius  bears  its 
usual  bell)  are,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  Hagen, 
shadowy,  compared  not  merely  to  Eodrigo  himself, 
but  to  Bermuez  and  Mufio  Gustioz,  to  Asur  Gonzalez 
and  Minaya. 

Still  the  chanson  stamp  is  unmistakably  on  it 
from  the  very  beginning,  where  the  Cid,  like  three- 
in  scheme  and  fourths  of  the  chaiisou  hcrocs  themselves, 
^"'-  has  experienced  royal  ingratitude,  through 

the  vaunts  and  the  fighting,  and  the  stock  phrases 
(abcvxan  las  Lanzas  following  ahrazan  los  escudos,  and 
the  like),  to  that  second  marriage  connecting  the  Cid 
afresh  with  royalty,  which  is  almost  as  common  in 
the  chansons  as  the  initial  ingratitude.  It  would  be 
altogether  astonishing  if  the  chansons  had  not  made 
their  way,  when  French  literature  was  making  it 
everywhere,  into  the  country  nearest  to  France. 
In  face  of  the  Poema  del  Cid,  it  is  quite  certain 
that  they  had  done  so,  and  that  here  as  elsewhere 
French  literature  performed  its  vigorous,  and  in  a 
way  self-sacrificing,  function  of  teaching  other  nations 
to  do  better  than  their  teacher. 

"When  we  pass  from  comparisons  of  general  scheme 
and  spirit  to  those  of  metrical  form,  the  matter  pre- 
Difficuities  nf  scuts  greater  puzzles.  As  observed  above, 
Us  prosody,  q^q  earlicst  French  chansons  known  to  us 
are  written  in  a  strict  syllabic  metre,  with  a  regular 
cffisura,  and  arranged  in  distinct  though  not  uniformly 
long  laisses,  each  tipped  with  an  identical  assonance. 

2  G 


402  EUROPEAN   LITERATUKE,    1100-1300. 

Further,  it  so  happens  that  this  very  assonance  is  one 
of  the  best  known  characteristics  of  Spanisli  poetry, 
which  is  the  only  body  of  verse  except  old  French  to 
show  it  in  any  great  volume  or  variety.  The  Spanish 
ballads  are  uniformly  written  in  trochaic  octosyllables 
(capable  of  reduction  or  extension  to  six,  seven,  or 
nine),  regularly  assonanced  in  the  second  and  fourth 
line,  but  not  necessarily  showing  either  rhyme  or 
assonance  in  the  first  and  third.  This  measure  be- 
came so  popular  that  the  great  dramatists  adopted  it, 
and  s  it  thus  figures  in  the  two  most  excellent  pro- 
ductions of  the  literature,  ballad  and  drama,  it  has 
become  practically  identified  in  the  general  mind  with 
Spanish  poetry,  and  not  so  very  long  ago  might  have 
been  described  by  persons,  not  exactly  ignorant,  as 
peculiar  to  it. 

But  when  we  turn  to  the  Pocma  del  Cid  we  find 
nothing  like  this.     It  is  true  that  its  latest  and  most 
Banad-metre   learned  student.  Professor  Cornu  of  Prague,^ 
theory.  j-^^^g^  J  bgHeve,  persuaded  himself  that  he  has 

discovered  the  basis  of  its  metre  to  be  the  ballad  octo- 
syllables, full  or  catalectic,  arranged  as  hemistichs  of 
a  longer  line,  and  that  he  has  been  able  to  point  out 
some  hundreds  of  tolerably  perfect  verses  of  the  kind. 
But  this  hypothesis  necessitates  our  granting  that  it 
was  possible  for  the  copyists,  or  the  line  of  copyists,  of 
the  unique  MS.  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  to  mistake 

^  I  have  not  seen  Professor  Cornu's  paper  itself,  but  only  a  notice 
of  it  by  M.  G.  Paris  in  Romania,  xxii.  153,  and  some  additional 
annotations  by  the  Professor  himself  at  p.  531  of  the  same 
volume. 


THE   LITET^ATURE   OF   THE   PENINSULAS.  403 

a  measure  so  simple.,  so  universally  natural,  and,  as  his- 
tory shows,  so  peculiarly  grateful  to  the  Spanish  ear, 
and  to  change  it  into  something  quite  difl'erent. 

For  there  is  no  question  but  that  at  first  sight,  and 
not  at  first  sight  only;  the  Pocmci  del  Cid  seems  to  be 
irrcaniarity  thc  most  irrcgular  production  of  its  kind 
nf  line.  {^]^g^^  qq^^  claim  high  rank  in  the  poetry  of 
Europe.  It  is  not  merely  that  it  is  "rough,"  as  its 
great  northern  congener  the  Nihelungenlicd  is  usually 
said  to  be,  or  that  its  lines  vary  in  length  from  ten 
syllables  to  over  twenty,  as  some  lines  of  Anglo-Saxon 
verse  do.  It  is  that  there  is  nothing  like  the  regular 
cadence  of  the  one,  or  (at  least  as  yet  discovered)  the 
combined  system  of  accent  and  alliteration  wliich 
accounts  for  the  other.  Almost  the  only  single 
feature  which  is  invariable  is  the  break  in  the 
middle  of  the  line,  which  is  much  more  than  a  mere 
csesura,  and  coincides  not  merely  with  the  end  of  a 
word,  but  with  a  distinct  stop  or  at  least  pause  in 
sense.  Beyond  this,  except  by  the  rather  violent 
hypothesis  of  copyist  misdeeds  above  referred  to,^ 
nobody  has  been  able  to  get  further  in  a  generalisa- 
tion of  the  metre  than  that  the  normal  form  is  an 
eight  and  six  (better  a  seven  and  seven)  "  fourteener," 
trochaically  cadenced,  but  admitting  contraction  and 
extension  with  a  liberality  elsewhere  unparalleled. 
And  the  ends  of  the  verses  are  as  troublesome  as 

^  It  is  perhaps  fair  to  Professor  Cornu  to  admit  some  weight  in 
his  argument  that  wlicre  proper  names  predominate — i.e.,  wliei-e  tlie 
copyist  was  least  likely  to  alter  —  his  basis  suggests  itself  most 
easily. 


404  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,   1100-1300. 

their  bodies.  Not  only  is  there  no  absolute  system 
either  of  assonance  or  of  rhyme ;  not  only  does  the 
consideration  that  at  a  certain  stage  assonance  and 
consonance  ^  meet  and  blend  help  us  little ;.  but  it  is 
almost  or  quite  impossible  to  discern  any  one  system 
on  which  the  one  or  the  other,  or  both,  can  be  thought 
to  have  been  used.  Sometimes,  indeed  frequently, 
something  like  the  French  laisses  or  continuous  blocks 
of  end -sound  appear:  sometimes  the  eye  feels  in- 
clined to  see  quatrains  —  a  form,  as  we  shall  see, 
agreeable  to  early  Spain,  and  very  common  in  all 
European  nations  at  this  stage  of  their  development. 
But  it  is  very  seldom  that  either  is  clearly  demon- 
strable except  in  parts,  while  neither  maintains  itself 
for  long.  Generally  the  pages  present  the  spectacle  of 
an  intensely  irregular  mosaic,  or  rather  conglomerate,  of 
small  blocks  of  assonance  or  consonance  put  together 
on  no  discoverable  system  whatever.  It  is,  of  course, 
fair  to  remember  that  Anglo-Saxon  verse — now,  ac- 
cording to  the  orthodox,  to  be  ranked  among  the 
strictest  prosodic  kinds — was  long  thought  to  be  as 
formless  as  this.  But  after  the  thorough  ransacking 
and  overhauling  which  almost  all  mediaeval  literature 
has  had  during  the  last  century,  it  is  certainly  strange 
that  the  underlying  system  in  the  Spanish  case,  if  it 
exists,  should  not  have  been  discovered,  or  should 
have  been  discovered  only  by  such  an  Alexandrine 

■*  Some  writers  very  inconveniently,  and.  by  a  false  transference 
from  "consonant,"  use  "consonance"  as  if  equivalent  to  "alliter- 
ation. It  is  much  better  kept  for  full  rhyme,  in  which  vowels  and 
consonants  both  "sound  with  "  each  other, 


THE   LITEKATUKE   OF   THE   PENINSULAS.  405 

cutting  of  the  knot  as  the  supposition  that  the 
copyist  has  made  "  pie "  of  about  seventy  per  cent 
at  least  of  the  whole. 

Still  the  form,  puzzling  as  it  is,  is  extremely  interest- 
ing, and  very  satisfactory  to  those  who  can  be  content 
with  unsystematic  enjoyment.  The  recurrent  wave- 
sound  which  has  been  noted  in  the  chansons  is  at  least 
as  noticeable,  though  less  regular,  here.  Let  us,  for 
instance,  open  the  poem  in  the  double-columned  edi- 
tion of  1842  at  random,  and  take  the  passage  on  the 
opening,  pp.  66,  67,  giving  the  best  part  of  two  hundred 
lines,  from  3491  to  3641.  The  eye  is  first  struck  with 
the  constant  repetition  of  catch-endings — "  Infantes  de 
Carrion,"  "  los  del  Campeador  " — each  of  which  occurs 
at  a  line-end  some  dozen  times  in  the  two  pages.  The 
second  and  still  more  striking  thing  is  that  almost  all 
this  long  stretch  of  verse,  though  not  in  one  single 
laisse,  is  carried  upon  an  assonance  in  o,  either  plump 
{Tfifanzon,  cort.  Carrion,  &c.),  which  continues  with  a 
break  or  two  for  at  least  fifty  lines,  or  with  another 
vowel  in  double  assonance  (taiadores,  tendones,  varones). 
But  this  sequence  is  broken  incomprehensibly  by  such 
end-words  as  tomar ;  and  the  length  of  the  lines  defies 
all  classification,  though  one  suspects  some  confusion 
of  arrangement.     For  instance,  it  is  not  clear  why 

"  Colada  e  Tizou  tjue  non  lidiaseii  con  ellas  lu--^  del  Campeador  " 
should  be  printed  as  one  line,  and 

"  Hybalos  ver  el  Key  Alfonso. 
Dixieron  los  del  Campeador," 

as  two. 


406  EUKOPEAN   LITEKATUllE,    1100-1300. 

If  we  then  turn  to  the  earlier  part,  that  which  comes 
before  the  Carrion  story,  we  shall  find  the  irregularity 
greater  still.  It  is  possible,  no  doubt,  by  making  rules 
sufficiently  elastic,  to  devise  some  sort  of  a  system  for 
five  consecutive  lines  which  end  folgar,  courier,  acordar, 
grandcs,  and  pan ;  but  it  will  be  a  system  so  exceed- 
ingly elastic  that  it  seems  a  superfluity  of  trouble  to 
make  it.  On  a  general  survey  it  may,  I  think,  be  said 
that  either  in  double  or  single  assonance  a  and  o  play 
a  much  larger  part  than  the  other  vowels,  whereas  in 
the  French  analogues  there  is  no  predominance  of  this 
kind,  or  at  least  nothing  like  so  much.  And  lastly,  to 
conclude  ^  these  rather  desultory  remarks  on  a  subject 
which  deserves  much  more  attention  than  it  has  yet 
had,  it  may  be  worth  observing  that  by  an  odd  coin- 
cidence the  Poema  del  Cid  concludes  with  a  delusive 
personal  mention  very  similar  to,  though  even  more 
precise  than,  that  about  "  Turoldus "  in  the  Chanson 
de  Roland.     For  it  ends — 

"  Per  Abbat  le  escribio  en  el  mes  de  maio 
En  era  de  mill  e  cc....xlv.  anos,'' 

tliere  being,  perhaps,  something  dropped  between  the 
second  c  and  the  x.  Peter  Abbat,  however,  has  been 
less  fortunate  than  Turoldus,  in  that  no  one,  it  seems, 
has  asserted  his  authorship,  though  he  may  have  been 
the  copyist-malefactor  of  theory.    And  it  may  perhaps 

^  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  give  an  abstract  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  poem,  because  Southey's  Chronicle  of  the  Cid  is  accessible 
to  everybody,  and  because  no  wise  man  will  ever  attempt  to  do  over 
again  what  Southey  has  once  done. 


THE  LITEKATURE  OF  THE  PENINSULAS.     407 

be  added  that  if  mccxlv.  is  the  correct  date,  this  would 
correspond  to  1207  of  our  chronology,  the  Spanish  medi- 
seval  era  starting  thirty-eight  years  too  early. 

The  remaining  literature  before  the  end  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  (immediately  after  that  date  there  is  a 
good  deal,  but  most  of  it  is  imitated  from 

other  poems,  i  i  • 

France)  may  be  dismissed  more  brielly. 
It  is  not  very  bulky,  but  it  is  noteworthy  that  it  is 
collected  in  a  manner  by  no  means  usual  at  the  time, 
under  two  known  names,  those  of  Gonzalo  Berceo, 
priest  of  St  Elianus  at  Callahorra,  and  of  King  Alfonso 
X.  For  the  Spanish  Alexander  of  Juan  Lorenzo 
Segura,  though  written  before  1300,  is  clearly  but 
one  of  the  numerous  family  of  the  French  and  French- 
Latin  Alexccndreicls  and  Romans  d'Alixanclre.  And 
certain  poems  on  Apollonius  of  Tyre,  St  Mary  of 
Egypt,  and  the  Three  Kings,  while  their  date  is  rather 
uncertain,  are  also  evidently  "  school  poems "  of  the 
same  kind. 

The  Spanish  Apollonius,^  however,  is  noteworthy, 
because  it  is  written  in  a  form  which  is  also  used  by 
Apollonius  mid  Berceo,  and  which  has  sometimes  been 
Mary  of  Egypt,  thought  to  be  spokeu  of  in  the  poem  itself 
as  nueva  maestria.  This  measure  is  the  old  four- 
teener,  which  struggles  to  appear  in  the  Cid,  regularly 
divided  into  hephthemimers,  and  now  regularly  ar- 
ranged also  in  mono -rhymed  quatrains.  The  "Life 
of  St  Mary  of  Egypt,"  '^  on  the  other  hand,  is  in  octo- 
syllabic couplets,  treated  with  the  same  freedom 
that  we  find  in  contemporary  German  handlings  of 

1  Sanchez- Ocliua,  ojt.  ciL,  pp.  525-561.  -  Ibid.,  pp.  561-57(5. 


408  EUROPEAN   LITEP.ATUKE,    1100-1300. 

that  metre,  and  varying  from  five  syllables  to  at  least 
eleven.  The  rhymes  are  good,  with  very  rare  lapses 
into  assonance ;  one  might  suspect  a  pretty  close  ad- 
herence to  a  probably  Pi^ven^al  original,  and  perhaps 
not  a  very  early  date.  Ticknor,  whose  Protestantism 
or  whose  prudery  seems  to  have  been  shocked  by 
this  "  coarse  and  indecent  history  " — he  might  surely 
have  found  politer  language  for  a  variant  of  the 
Magdalene  story,  which  is  beautiful  in  itself  and  has 
received  especial  ornament  from  art — thought  it  com- 
posed of  "meagre  monkish  verse,"  and  "hardly  of 
importance"  except  as  a  monument  of  language.  I 
should  myself  venture — with  infinitely  less  competence 
in  the  particular  language,  but  some  knowledge  of 
other  things  of  the  same  kind  and  time — to  call  it 
a  rather  lively  and  accomplished  performance  of  its 
class.  The  third  piece  ^  of  those  published,  not  by 
Sanchez  himself,  but  as  an  appendix  to  the  Paris 
edition,  is  the  Adoracion  de  Los  Santos  Reyes,  a  poem 
shorter  than  the  Santa  Maria  Ugipciaca,  but  very 
similar  in  manner  as  well  as  in  subject.  I  observe 
that  Ticknor,  in  a  note,  seems  himself  to  be  of  the 
opinion  that  these  two  pieces  are  not  so  old  as  the 
Apollonius ;  though  his  remarks  about  "  the  French 
faUiaux"  are  not  to  the  point.  The  fabliaux,  it  is 
true,  are  in  octosyllabic  verse ;  but  octosyllabic  verse 
is  certainly  older  than  the  fahliaiix,  which  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  Lives  of  the  Saints.  But  he  could  hardly 
have  known  this  when  he  wrote. 

Berceo,  who  appears  to  have  written  more  than  thir- 

^  Sanchez-Oclioa.  0J3.  cit..  pp.  577-579. 


THE   LITERATURE   OF   THE   PENINSULAS.  409 

teen  thousand  lines,  wrote  nothing  secular ;  and  though 
the  religious  poetry  of  the  ]\Iiddle  Ages  is 

Bcrceo.  .  ,  .  . 

occasionally  of  the  highest  order,  yet  when 
it  is  of  that  rank  it  is  almost  invariably  Latin,  not 
vernacular,  while  its  vernacular  expression,  even  where 
not  despicable,  is  apt  to  be  very  much  of  a  piece,  and 
to  present  very  few  features  of  literary  as  distinguished 
from  philological  interest.  Historians  have,  however 
very  properly  noted  in  him  the  occurrence  of  a  short 
lyrical  fragment  in  irregular  octosyllabics,  each  rhymed 
in  couplets  and  interspersed  after  every  line  with  a 
refrain.  The  only  certain  fact  of  his  life  seems  to  be 
his  ordination  as  deacon  in  1221. 

Of  King  Alfonso  the  Learned  (for  he  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  by  any  means  very  wise)  much 
Alfonso  el  niorc  is  of  coursc  known,  though  the  saying 
sabio.  about  the  blessedness  of  having  no  history 
is  not  falsified  in  his  case.  But  his  titular  enjoyment 
of  the  empire,  his  difficulties  with  his  sons,  his  death, 
practically  dethroned,  and  the  rest,  do  not  concern  us : 
nor  does  even  his  famous  and  rather  wickedly  wrested 
saying  (a  favourite  with  Carlyle)  about  the  creation 
of  the  world  and  the  possibility  of  improvement  there- 
in had  the  Creator  taken  advice.  Even  the  far  more 
deservedly  famous  Siete  Partidas,  with  that  Fxtxro 
Juzgo  in  which,  though  it  was  issued  in  his  father's 
time,  he  is  supposed  to  have  had  a  hand,  are  merely 
noteworthy  here  as  early,  curious,  and,  especially  in 
the  case  of  the  Partidas,  excellent  specimens  of  Span- 
ish prose  in  its  earliest  form.  He  could  not  have 
executed  these   or  any  great  part   of  them   himself: 


410  EUKOPEAN   LITEKATUHE,    1100-1300. 

and  the  great  bulk  of  the  other  work  attributed  to 
him  must  also  have  been  really  that  of  collaborators 
or  secretaries.  The  verse  part  of  this  is  not  extensive, 
consisting  of  a  collection  of  Cantigas  or  hymns,  Pro- 
vencal in  style  and  (to  the  puzzlement  of  historians) 
Galician  rather  than  Castilian  in  dialect,  and  an 
alchemical  medley  of  verse  and  prose  called  the  Tcsoro. 
These,  if  they  be  his,  he  may  have  written  for  himself 
and  by  himself.  But  for  his  Astronontical  Tables,  a  not 
unimportant  point  de  rcphre  in  astronomical  history,  he 
must,  as  for  the  legal  works  already  mentioned  and 
others,  have  been  largely  indebted.  There  seems  to  be 
much  doubt  about  a  prose  Trisor,  which  is  or  is  not  a 
translation  of  the  famous  work  of  Brunetto  Latini  (dates 
would  here  seem  awkward).  But  the  Cronica  General 
de  Espaiia,  the  Spanish  Bible,  the  Universal  History, 
and  the  Gran  Conquesta  de  Ultramar  (this  last  a  His- 
tory of  the  Crusades,  based  partly  on  William  of  Tyre, 
partly  on  the  chanson  cycle  of  the  Crusades,  fables 
and  all)  must  necessarily  be  his  only  in  the  sense  that 
he  very  likely  commissioned,  and  not  improbably 
assisted  in  them.  The  width  and  variety  of  the  attri- 
butions, whether  contestable  in  parts  or  not,  prove 
quite  sufficiently  for  our  purpose  this  fact,  that  by 
his  time  (he  died  in  1284)  literature  of  nearly  all 
kinds  was  being  pretty  busily  cultivated  in  the  Spanish 
vernaculars,  though  in  this  case  as  in  others  it  might 
chiefly  occupy  itself  with  translations  or  adaptations 
of  Latin  or  of  French. 

This  fact  in  general,  and  the  capital  and  interesting 
phenomenon  of  the  Poema  del  Cid  in  particular,  are 


THE  LITEEATUKE  OF  THE  PENINSULAS.     411 

the  noticeable  points  in  this  division  of  our  subject. 
It  will  be  observed  that  Spain  is  at  this  time  content, 
like  Goethe's  scholar,  sick  iihen.  Her  one  great  liter- 
ary achievement — admirable  in  some  respects,  incom- 
parable in  itself — is  not  a  novelty  in  kind :  she  has 
no  lessons  in  form  to  give,  which,  like  some  of  Italy's, 
have  not  been  improved  upon  to  this  day ;  she  cannot, 
like  Germany,  boast  a  great  quantity  of  work  of  equal 
accomplishment  and  inspiration ;  least  of  all  has  she 
the  astonishing  fertility  and  the  unceasing  maestria 
of  France.  But  she  has  practice  and  promise,  she  is 
doing  something  more  than  "  going  to  begin,"  and  her 
one  great  achievement  has  (it  cannot  well  be  too  often 
repeated)  the  inestimable  and  unmistakable  quality  of 
being  itself  and  not  something  else,  in  spirit  if  not  in 
scheme,  in  character  if  not  quite  in  form.  It  would 
be  no  consolation  for  the  loss  of  the  Cicl  that  we  have 
Beowulf  and  Roland  and  the  Nibdunycn — they  would 
not  fill  its  place,  they  do  not  speak  with  its  voice. 
The  much -abused  and  nearly  meaningless  adjective 
"  Homeric  "  is  here,  in  so  far  as  it  has  any  meaning, 
once  more  appropriate.  Of  the  form  of  Homer  there 
is  little :  of  the  vigour,  the  freshness,  the  poetry,  there 
is  much. 


412 


CHAPTER    X. 

CONCLUSIONc 

It  is  now  time  to  sum  up,  as  may  best  be  done,  the 
results  of  this  attempt  to  survey  the  Literature  of 
Europe  during  one,  if  not  of  its  most  accomplished, 
most  enlightened,  or  most  generally  admired  periods, 
yet  assuredly  one  of  the  most  momentous,  the  most 
interesting,  the  fullest  of  problem  and  of  promise. 
Audacious  as  the  attempt  itself  may  seem  to  some, 
inadequate  as  the  performance  may  be  pronounced 
by  others,  it  is  needless  to  spend  much  more  argu- 
ment in  urging  its  claim  to  be  at  least  tried  on  the 
merits.  All  varieties  of  literary  history  have  draw- 
backs almost  inseparable  from  their  schemes.  The 
elaborate  monograph,  which  is  somewhat  in  favour 
just  now,  is  exposed  to  the  criticism,  not  quite  carp- 
ing, that  it  is  practically  useless  without  independent 
study  of  its  subject,  and  practically  superfluous  with 
it.  The  history  of  separate  literatures,  whether  in 
portion  or  in  whole,  is  always  liable  to  be  charged 
with  omissions  or  with  disproportionate  treatment 
within   its   subject,   with  want   of   perspective,  with 


CONCLUSION.  413 

"blinking,"  as  regards  matters  without.  And  so  such 
a  survey  as  this  is  liable  to  the  charge  of  being  super- 
ficial, or  of  attempting  more  than  it  can  possibly  cover, 
or  of  not  keeping  the  due  balance  betvs^een  its  various 
provinces  and  compartments. 

It  must  be  for  others  to  say  how  such  a  charge,  in 
the  present  case,  is  helped  by  lachea  or  incompetence 
on  the  part  of  the  surveyor.  But  enough  has,  I  hope, 
been  said  to  clear  the  scheme  itself  from  the  objection 
of  uselessness  or  of  impracticability.  In  one  sense,  no 
doubt,  far  more  room  than  this  volume,  or  a  much 
larger,  could  provide,  may  seem  to  be  required  for  the 
discussion  and  arrangement  of  so  great  and  interesting 
a  matter  as  the  Literature  of  the  Twelfth  and  Thir- 
teenth Centuries.  But  to  say  this,  is  only  saying  that 
no  such  account  in  such  a  space  could  be  exhaustive : 
and  it  so  happens  that  an  exhaustive  account  is  for 
the  purpose  not  required — would  indeed  go  pretty  far 
towards  the  defeat  of  that  purpose.  What  is  wanted 
is  to  secure  that  the  reader,  whether  he  pursues  his 
studies  in  more  detail  with  regard  to  any  of  these 
literatures  or  not,  shall  at  any  rate  have  in  his  head  a 
fair  general  notion  of  what  they  were  simultaneously 
or  in  succession,  of  the  relation  in  which  they  stood  to 
each  other,  of  the  division  of  literary  labour  between 
them. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  be  said,  "  You  propose  to 
give,  according  to  your  scheme,  a  volume  apiece  to 
the  fourteenth  and  even  the  fifteenth  centuries,  the 
work  of  which  was  far  less  original  and  interesting 
than  the  work  of  these  two !      Why  do  you  couple 


414  EUROPEAN    TJTETtATURE,    1100-1300. 

these  ? "  the  answer  is  not  difticult.  In  the  tirst  place, 
the  work  of  tliese  two  centuries — which  is  mainly 
though  not  wholly  the  work  of  the  liundred  years  that 
form  their  centre  period  —  is  curiously  inseparable. 
In  only  a  few  cases  do  we  know  precise  dates,  and  in 
many  the  circa  is  of  such  a  circuitous  character  that 
we  can  hardly  tell  whether  the  twelfth  or  the  thir- 
teenth century  deserves  the  credit.  In  almost  all  the 
adoption  of  any  intermediate  date  of  severance  would 
leave  an  awkward,  raw,  unreal  division.  We  should 
leave  off  while  the  best  of  the  chansons  de  geste  were 
still  being  produced,  in  the  very  middle  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Arthurian  legend,  with  half  the  fabliaux 
yet  to  come  and  half  the  sagas  unwritten,  with  the 
Minnesingers  in  full  voice,  with  the  tale  of  the  Eose 
lialf  told,  with  the  Fox  not  yet  broken  up. 

And,  in  the  second  place,  the  singular  combination 
of  anonymity  and  school-character  in  the  most  char- 
acteristic medio3val  literature  makes  it  easier,  vast  as  is 
its  mass  and  in  some  cases  conspicuous  as  is  its  merit, 
to  handle  in  small  space  than  later  work.  Only  by 
a  wild  indulgence  in  guessing  or  a  tedious  minute- 
ness of  attention  to  Lautlehrc  and  rhyme-lists  is  it 
possible  to  make  a  treatment  of  even  a  named  person 
like  Chrestien  de  Troyes  on  the  scale  of  a  notice  of 
Dante  or  even  Froissart,  and  this  without  reference 
to  the  comparative  literary  importance  of  the  three. 
The  million  lines  of  the  cha'\sons  de  gesU  do  not 
demand  discussion  in  anythiUj^  like  direct  proportion 
to  their  bulk.  One  fahliau,  much  more  one  minne- 
song  or  troubadour  lyric,  has  a  far  greater  resemblance 


CONCLUSION.  415 

of  kind  to  its  fellows  than  even  one  modern  novel, 
even  one  nineteenth-centniy  minor  poem,  to  another. 
As  the  men  write  in  schools,  so  they  can  be  handled 
in  them. 

Yet  I  should  hope  that  it  must  have  been  already 
made  apparent  how  very  far  the  present  writer  is 
from  undervaluing  the  period  with  which  he  has 
essayed  to  deal.  He  might  perhaps  be  regarded  as 
overvaluing  it  with  more  apparent  reason  —  not,  I 
think,  with  any  reason  that  is  more  than  apparent. 

For  this  was  the  time,  if  not  of  the  IJirtli — tlie 
exact  times  and  seasons  of  literary  births  no  man 
knoweth — at  any  rate  of  the  first  appearance,  full- 
blown or  full  -  fledged,  of  Eomance.  Many  praise- 
worthy folk  have  made  many  efforts  to  show  that 
Eomance  was  after  all  no  such  new  thing — that  there 
is  Eomance  in  the  Odyssey,  Eomance  in  the  choruses 
of  ^schylus,  Eomance  East  and  West,  North  and 
South,  before  the  Middle  Ages.  They  are  only  less 
unwise  than  the  other  good  folk  who  endeavour  to 
tie  Eomance  down  to  a  Teutonic  origin,  or  a  Celtic, 
or  in  the  other  sense  a  Eomance  one,  to  Chivalry 
(which  was  in  truth  rather  its  offspring  than  its 
parent),  to  this,  and  that,  and  the  other.  "All  the 
best  things  in  literature,"  it  has  been  said,  "are 
returns " ;  and  this  is  perfectly  true,  just  as  it  is 
perfectly  true  in  another  sense  that  all  the  best 
things  in  literature  are  novelties.  In  this  particular 
growth,  being  as  it  was  a  product  of  the  luichanging 
human  mind,  there  were  notes,  doubtless,  of  Homer 
and  of  yEschylus,  of  Solomon  the  son  of  David  and 


416  EUKOPEAN  LITERATURE,   1100-1300. 

of  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach.  But  the  constituents  of 
the  mixture  were  newly  grouped  ;  elements  which  had 
in  the  past  been  inconspicuous  or  dormant  assumed 
prominence  and  activity ;  and  the  whole  was  new. 

It  was  even  one  of  the  few,  the  very  few,  permuta- 
tions and  combinations  of  the  elements  of  literature, 
which  are  of  such  excellence,  volume,  durability,  and 
charm,  that  they  rank  above  all  minor  changes  and 
groupings.  An  amabilis  insania  of  the  same  general 
kind  with  those  above  noted  has  endeavoured  again 
and  again  to  mark  off  and  define  the  chief  constituents 
of  the  fact.  The  happiest  result,  if  only  a  partial 
one,  of  such  attempts  has  been  the  opposition  between 
Classical  precision  and  proportion  and  the  Eomantic 
vague ;  but  no  one  would  hold  this  out  as  a  final  or 
sufficient  account  of  the  matter.  It  may,  indeed,  be 
noted  that  that  peculiar  blended  character  which  has 
been  observed  in  the  genesis  of  perhaps  the  greatest 
and  most  characteristic  bloom  of  the  whole  garden — 
the  Arthurian  Legend — is  to  be  found  elsewhere  also. 
The  Greeks,  if  they  owed  part  of  the  intensity,  had 
undoubtedly  owed  nearly  all  the  gaps  and  flaws  of 
their  production,  as  well  as  its  extraordinarily  short- 
lived character,  to  their  lack  alike  of  instructors  and 
of  fellow-pupils — to  the  defect  in  Comparison.  Eoman 
Literature,  always  more  or  less  in  statu  pupillari,  had 
wanted  the  fellow-pupils,  if  not  the  tutor.  But  the 
national  divisions  of  mediaeval  Europe  —  saved  from 
individual  isolation  by  the  great  bond  of  the  Church, 
saved  from  mutual  lack  of  understanding  by  the  other 
great   bond   of   the   Latin   quasi  -  vernacular,   shaken 


CONCLUSTOX.  417 

together  by  wars  holy  and  profane,  and  while  each 
exhibiting  the  fresh  characteristics  of  national  infancy, 
none  of  them  case-hardened  into  national  insularity — 
enjoyed  a  unique  opportunity,  an  opportunity  never 
likely  to  be  again  presented,  of  producing  a  literature 
common  in  essential  characteristic,  but  richly  coloured 
and  fancifully  shaded  in  each  division  by  the  genius 
of  race  and  soil.  And  this  literature  was  developed  in 
the  two  centuries  which  have  been  the  subject  of  our 
survey.  It  is  true  that  not  all  the  nations  were  e(pTally 
contributors  to  the  positive  literary  production  of  the 
time.  England  was  apparently  paying  a  heavy  penalty 
for  her  unique  early  accomplishments,  was  making  a 
large  sacritice  for  the  better  things  to  come.  Between 
1100  and  1300  no  single  book  that  can  be  called  great 
was  produced  in  the  English  tongue,  and  hardly  any 
single  writer  distinctly  deserving  the  same  adjective  was 
an  Englishman.  But  how  mighty  were  the  compensa- 
tions !  The  language  itself  was  undergoing  a  process 
of  "  inarching,"  of  blending,  crossing,  which  left  it  the 
richest,  both  in  positive  vocabulary  and  in  capacity  for 
increasing  that  vocabulary  at  need,  of  any  European 
speech  ;  the  possessor  of  a  double  prosody,  quantitative 
and  alliterative,  which  secured  it  from  the  slightest 
chance  of  poetic  poverty  or  hide-boundness ;  relieved 
from  the  curabrousness  of  synthetic  accidence  'to  all 
but  the  smallest  extent,  and  in  case  to  elaborate  a  syn- 
tax equally  suitable  for  verse  and  prose,  for  exposition 
and  narrative,  for  oratory  and  for  argument.  More- 
over it  was,  as  I  have  at  least  endeavoured  to  show, 
probably    England   which    provided    the    groundwork 

3p 


418  EUEOPEAX    LITER ATUEE,    1100-1300. 

and  first  literary  treatment,  it  was  certainly  England 
that  provided  the  sulyect,  of  the  largest,  the  most  en- 
during, the  most  varied  single  division  of  mediaeval 
work ;  while  the  Isle  of  Ikitain  furnished  at  least  its 
quota  to  the  general  literature  of  Europe  other  than 
vernaciilar. 

Other  countries,  though  their  languages  were  not 
conquering  their  conqueror  as  English  was  doing  with 
French,  also  displayed  sufficient  individuality  in  deal- 
ing with  the  models  and  the  materials  with  which 
French  activity  supplied  them.  The  best  poetical 
work  of  Icelandic,  like  the  best  work  of  its  cousin 
Anglo-Saxon,  was  indeed  over  before  the  period  be- 
gan, and  the  best  prose  work  was  done  before  it  ended, 
the  rapid  and  never  fully  explained  exhaustion  of 
Norse  energy  and  enterprise  preventing  the  literature 
which  had  been  produced  from  having  effect  on  other 
nations.  Tlie  children  of  the  vatcs  of  Grettir  and  Njal 
contented  themselves,  like  others,  with  adapting  French 
romances,  and,  unlike  others,  they  did  not  make  this 
adaptation  the  groundwork  of  new  and  original  effort. 
But  meanwhile  they  had  made  in  the  Sagas,  greater 
and  lesser,  such  a  contribution  as  no  literature  has 
excelled  in  intensity  and  character,  comparatively  small 
as  it  is  in  bulk  and  comparatively  undistinguished  in 
form. 

"  Unlike  others,"  it  has  been  said ;  for  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  Charlemagne  Cycle  from  Northern, 
the  troubadour  lyric  from  Southern,  France  exer- 
cised upon  Italy  the  same  effect  that  was  exercised  in 
Germany  by  the  romances  of  Arthur  and  of  Antiquity, 


CONCLUSION.  419 

and  by  the  trouvhre  poetry  generally.  But  in  these 
two  countries,  as  also  more  doubtfully,  but  still  with 
fair  certainty,  in  Spain,  the  French  models  found,  as 
they  did  also  in  England,  literary  capacities  and  tastes 
not  jaded  and  outworn,  but  full  of  idiosyncrasy,  and 
ready  to  develop  each  in  its  own  way.  Here  how- 
ever, by  that  extraordinary  law  of  compensation  which 
seems  to  be  the  most  general  law  of  the  universe,  the 
effects  differed  as  much  in  quantity  and  time  as  in 
character — a  remarkable  efflorescence  of  literature  in 
Germany  being  at  once  produced,  to  relapse  shortly 
into  a  long  sterility,  a  tardier  but  more  constant 
growth  following  in  England  and  Italy,  while  the 
effect  in  Spain  was  the  most  partial  and  obscure  of 
all.  The  great  names  of  "Wolfram  von  Eschenbach 
and  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  hardly  meet  with 
any  others  in  these  literatures  representing  writers 
who  are  known  abroad  as  well  as  at  home.  Only 
philologists  out  of  England  (and  I  fear  not  too  many 
besides  philologists  in  it)  read  Alisaunder  and  Michard 
Cmur  de  Lion,  Arthour  and  Merlin,  or  the  Brut ;  the 
early  Italian  poets  shine  but  in  the  reflected  light  of 
Dante ;  and  if  any  one  knows  tlie  Cid,  it  is  usually 
from  Corneille,  or  Herder,  or  Southey,  rather  than 
from  his  own  noble  Poem.  But  no  one  who  does  study 
these  forgotten  if  not  disdained  ones,  no  one  who  with 
a  love  for  literature  bestows  even  the  most  casual 
attention  on  them,  can  fail  to  see  their  meaning  and 
their  promise,  their  merit  and  their  charm. 

That  languages  of  such  power  should  have  remained 
without  literatures  is  of  course  inconceivable ;  that  any 


420  EUROPEAN    LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

of  them  even  needed  the  instruction  they  received 
from  France  cannot  be  said  positively ;  but  what  is 
certain  is  that  they  all  received  it.  In  most  cases 
the  acknowledgment  is  direct,  express,  not  capable  of 
being  evaded  or  misconstrued :  in  all  it  is  incapable 
of  being  mistaken  by  those  who  have  eyes,  and  who 
have  trained  them.  To  inquire  into  the  cause  were 
rather  idle.  The  central  position  of  France ;  the 
early  notoriety  and  vogue  of  the  schools  of  Paris ; 
the  curious  position  of  the  language,  midway  between 
the  extremer  Eomance  and  the  purely  Teutonic 
tongues,  which  made  it  a  sort  of  natural  interpreter 
between  them ;  perhaps  must  of  all  that  inexplicable 
but  undeniable  fornuil  talent  of  the  French  for 
literature,  which  is  as  undeniable  and  as  inexjDlicable 
as  the  less  formal  senius  of  the  Eniiiish, — all  these 
things,  except  the  central  position,  only  push  the 
problem  farther  back,  and  are  in  need  of  being 
explained  themselves.  But  the  fact,  the  solid  and 
certain  fact,  remains.  And  so  it  is  that  the  greater 
part  of  this  book  has  necessarily  been  occupied  in 
expounding,  first  the  different  forms  which  the  lessons 
of  France  took,  and  then  the  different  ways  in  which 
other  countries  learnt  those  lessons  and  turned  them 
to  account. 

It  is  thus  difficult  tu  overestimate  the  importance 
of  that  wonderful  literature  which  rises  dominant 
among  all  these,  imparting  to  all,  borrowing  from 
none,  or  borrowing  only  subjects,  exhibiting  finish 
of  structure  when  all  the  rest  were  merely  barbarian 
novices,  exploring   every   literary   form   from  history 


CONCLUSION.  421 

to  drama,  and  from  epic  to  song,  while  others  were 
stammering  their  exercises,  mostly  learnt  from  her. 
The  exact  and  just  proportions  of  the  share  due  to 
Southern  and  Northern  France  respectively  none  can 
now  determine,  and  scholarship  oscillates  between 
extremes  as  usual.  What  is  certain  (perhaps  it  is 
the  only  thing  that  is  certain)  is  that  to  Provencal 
belongs  the  credit  of  establishing  for  the  first  time 
a  modern  prosody  of  such  a  kind  as  to  turn  out 
verse  of  perfect  form.  Whether,  if  Pallas  in  her 
warlike  capacity  had  been  kinder  to  the  Provencals, 
she  could  or  would  have  inspired  them  with  more 
varied  kinds  of  literature  tlian  the  exquisite  lyric 
which  as  a  fact  is  almost  their  sole  title  to  fame,  we 
cannot  say.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  kinds  other 
than  lyric,  and  some  of  the  lyrical  kinds  themselves 
— the  short  tale,  the  epic,  the  romance,  the  play,  tlie 
history,  the  sermon  —  all  find  their  early  home,  if 
not  their  actual  birthplace,  north,  not  south,  of  the 
Limousin  line.  It  was  from  Normandy  and  Poitou, 
from  Anjou  and  the  Orleannais,  from  the  Isle  of 
France  and  Champagne,  that  in  language  at  least 
the  patterns  which  were  used  by  all  Europe,  the 
specifications,  so  to  speak,  which  all  Europe  adapted 
and  filled  up,  went  forth,  sometimes  not  to  return. 

Yet  it  is  not  in  the  actual  literature  of  France 
itself,  except  in  those  contributions  to  tlie  Arthurian 
story  which,  as  it  has  been  pointed  out,  were 
importations,  not  indigenous  growths,  and  in  some 
touches  of  the  Rose,  that  the  spirit  of  llomance  is 
most   evident — the  spirit  which,  to  those  who   have 


422  EUROPEAN   LITERATURE,    1100-1300. 

come  thoroughly  to  appreciate  it,  makes  classical 
grace  and  finish  seem  thin  and  tame.  Oriental 
exuberance  tasteless  and  vulgar,  modern  scientific 
precision  inexpressibly  charmless  and  jejune. 

Different  sides  of  this  spirit  display  themselves,  of 
course,  in  different  productions  of  the  time.  There  is 
the  spirit  of  combat,  in  which  the  Chansons  de  gcstc 
show  the  way,  anticipating  in  time,  if  not  quite 
equalling  in  intensity,  the  Sagas  and  the  Nihchingen- 
lied.  There  is  sometimes  faintly  mingled  with  this 
(as  in  the  gabz  of  the  Voyage  a  Constantinohlc,  and  the 
exploits  of  Eainoart  with  the  Unci)  the  spirit,  half 
rough,  half  sly,  of  jesting,  which  by -and -by  takes 
shape  in  the  fablianoi.  There  is  the  immense  and 
restless  spirit  of  curiosity,  which  explores  and 
refashions,  to  its  own  guise  and  fancy,  the  relics  of 
the  old  world,  the  treasures  of  the  East,  the  lessons  of 
Scripture  itself.  Side  by  side  with  these  there  is  that 
singular  form  of  the  religious  spirit  which  has  been 
so  constantly  misunderstood,  and  which,  except  in  a 
very  few  persons,  seems  so  rare  nowadays — the  faith 
which  is  implicit  without  being  imbecile,  childlike 
without  being  childish,  devout  with  a  fearless 
familiarity,  the  spirit  to  which  the  Dies  Ira:,  and  the 
sermons  of  St  Francis  were  equally  natural  expres- 
sions, and  which,  if  it  could  sometimes  exasperate 
itself  into  the  practices  of  the  Inquisition,  found  a 
far  commoner  and  more  genuine  expression  in  the 
kindly  humanities  of  the  Ancren  liiwle.  There  is  no 
lack  of  knowledge  and  none  of  inquiry ;  though  in 
embarking  on  the  enormous  ocean  of  ignorance,  it  is 


CONCLUSION.  423 

inquiry  not  cabined  and  cribbed  by  our  limits.  In 
particular,  there  is  an  almost  unparalleled,  a  certainly 
unsurpassed,  activity  in  metaphysical  speculation,  a 
fence-play  of  thought  astonishing  in  its  accuracy  and 
style.  As  Poetry  slowly  disintegrates  and  exfoliates 
itself  into  Prose,  literary  gifts  for  which  verse  was 
unsuited  develop  themselves  in  the  vernaculars ;  and 
the  chronicle  —  itself  so  lately  an  epic  —  becomes  a 
history,  or  at  least  a  memoir ;  the  orator,  sacred  or 
profane,  quits  the  school  rhetoric  and  its  familiar 
Latin  vehicle  for  more  direct  means  of  persuasion ; 
the  jurist  gives  these  vernaculars  precision  by  adopt- 
ing them. 

But  with  and  through  and  above  all  these  various 
spirits  there  is  most  of  all  that  abstract  spirit  of 
poetry,  which,  though  not  possessed  by  the  Middle 
Ages  or  by  Romance  alone,  seems  somehow  to  be  a 
more  inseparable  and  pervading  familiar  of  Pomance 
and  of  the  Middle  Ages  than  of  any  other  time  and 
any  other  kind  of  literature.  The  sense  of  mystery, 
which  had  rarely  troubled  the  keen  intellect  of  the 
Greek  and  the  sturdy  common-sense  of  the  Poman, 
which  was  even  a  little  degraded  and  impoverished 
(except  in  the  Jewish  prophets  and  in  a  few  other 
places)  by  the  busy  activity  of  Oriental  imagination, 
which  we  ourselves  have  banished,  or  think  we  have 
banished,  to  a  few  "  poets'  scrolls,"  was  always  present 
to  the  medi;eval  mind.  In  its  l)roadest  and  coarsest 
jests,  in  its  most  laborious  and  (as  we  are  pleased  to 
call  them)  dullest  expansions  of  stories,  in  its  most 
wire  -  drawn   and   most  lifeless   allegory,   iu   its   most 


424  EUllOPEAN   LITEKATURE,    1100-1300, 

irritating  admixture  of  science  and  fable,  there  is 
always  hard  by,  always  ready  to  break  in,  the  sense 
of  the  great  and  wonderful  things  of  Life,  and  Love, 
and  Death,  of  the  half-known  God  and  the  unknown 
Hereafter,  It  is  this  which  gives  to  llomance,  and  to 
mediaeval  work  generally,  that  "  high  seriousness,"  the 
want  of  which  was  so  strangely  cast  at  it  in  reproach 
by  a  critic  who,  I  cannot  but  think,  was  less  intimately 
acquainted  with  its  literature  than  with  that  either  of 
classical  or  of  modern  times.  Constantly  in  medieeval 
poetry,  very  commonly  in  mediaeval  prose,  the  great 
things  appear  greatly.  There  is  in  English  verse 
romance  perhaps  no  less  felicitous  sample  of  the 
kind  as  it  stands,  none  which  has  received  greater 
vituperation  for  dulness  and  commonplace,  than  Si7' 
Amadas.  Yet  who  could  much  better  the  two  simple 
lines,  when  the  hero  is  holding  revel  after  his  ghastly 
meeting  with  the  unburied  corse  in  the  roadside 
chapel  ? — 

"  But  the  dead  corse  that  lay  on  bier 
Full  mickle  his  thought  was  on." 

In  Homer's  Greek  or  Dante's  Italian  such  a  couplet 
(which,  be  it  observed,  is  as  good  in  rhythm  and  vowel 
contrast  as  in  simple  presentation  of  thought)  could 
hardly  lack  general  admiration.  In  the  English  poetry 
of  the  Middle  Ages  it  is  dismissed  as  a  commonplace. 
Yet  such  things,  and  far  better  things,  are  to  be  met 
everywhere  in  the  literature  which,  during  the  period 
we  have  had  under  review,  took  definite  form  and 
shape.     It  produced,  indeed,  none  of  the  greatest  men 


CONCLUSION.  425 

of  letters — no  Chaucer  nor  Dante,  no  Froissart  even, 
at  best  for  certainties  a  Villehardouin  and  a  AYilliam 
of  Lorris,  a  "Wolfram  and  a  "Walther,  witli  shadowy 
creatures  of  speculation  like  the  authors  of  the  p;reat 
romances.  But  it  produced  some  of  the  greatest  mat- 
ter, and  some  of  not  the  least  delightful  handlings  of 
matter,  in  book-history.  And  it  is  everywhere  dis- 
tinguished, first,  by  the  adventurous  fecundity,  of  its 
experiments  in  form  and  kind,  secondl}',  by  the  pres- 
ence of  that  spirit  which  has  been  adumbrated  in  the 
last  paragraph.  In  this  last,  we  must  own,  the  pupil 
countries  far  outdid  their  master  or  mistress.  France 
was  stronger  relatively  in  the  spirit  of  poetry  during 
the  Middle  Ages  than  she  has  been  since ;  but  she  was 
still  weaker  than  others.  She  gave  them  expression, 
j)atterns,  form :  they  found  passion  and  spirit,  with  not 
seldom  positive  story-subject  as  well.  AMien  we  come 
upon  some  nueva  niaestria,  as  the  old  Spanish  poet 
called  it,  some  cunning  trick  of  fornix  some  craftsman- 
like adjustment  of  style  and  kind  to  literary  ])urposes, 
we  shall  generally  find  that  it  w^as  invented  in  France. 
But  we  know  that  no  Frenchman  could  have  written 
the  Dies  Tree  ;  and  though  we  recognise  French  as  at 
home  in  the  Kose-Garden,  and  not  out  of  place  in  the 
fatal  meeting  of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere,  it  sounds  but 
as  a  foreign  language  in  the  towers  of  Carbonek  or  of 
Montsalvatsch. 


INDEX. 


AWmt,  Peter,  406. 

Abelaifl.  14,  17. 

Adam  de  la  Halle,  316-321. 

Adam  of  St  Victor,  8,  10. 

Alberic  of  BesaiKjon.  157. 

Albertus  jMacnmSj  18. 

Alcamo,  Ciullo  d',  387. 

Alexander  Hales,  18. 

Alexander,  romances  of,  chap.  iv. 

passim. 
Alfonso  X.,  409,  410. 
AUscans,  75  sq. 
"Alison,"  210,  211. 
Amalricans,  the,  20  note. 
Amanry  de  Bene,  18. 
Ancona,  Professor  d',  387. 
A-}icren  Riwle,  the,  198-201. 
Anna  Comnena,  378. 
Anselni,  14,  17. 
Apollonius,  the  Spanish,  407. 
Aquinas,  Tlionias,  18. 
"Arch-poet,"  tlie,  5. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  55,  278. 
Ascham,  128. 

Axicassin  et  Nicolette,  330-332. 
Audefroy  le  Bastard,  275. 
Aue,  Hartniann  von,  246-251. 

Bacon,  Koger,  IS. 
Bartsch,  HerrK.,270. 
Bastart  de  Jiouillon,  le,  57. 
Baudouin  de  Sehourc,  32  sq. 
Beanvais,  Vincent  of,  18. 
Bede,  90. 


Bedicr,  M.,  276. 

Benoit  de  Sainte-More,  177  sq. 

Beoicidf,  30,  36,  188. 

Berceo,  G.  407. 

Bernard  of  Morlaix,  8,  11-13. 

Bernard,  St,  8,  322. 

Bodel,  Jean,  26  note,  148. 

Bonaventura,  18. 

Borron,  Robert  de,  i38. 

Brunetiere,  M.  F.,  55,  83. 

Brut.     See  Geottrey  of  Moumoutli, 

Lavanion,  and  Wace. 
Budge,  Mr  Wallis,  152. 

Callisthenes,  the  Pseudo-,  152  sq. 
Caradoc  of  Lancarvan,  91. 
Canniiia  Jiurana,  4. 
Celano,  Thomas  of,  9. 
Champeaux,  William  of,  17. 
Chrestien  de  Troyes,  101  sq.,  195. 
Cid,  Poema  del,  23,  376,  393,  398 

sq. 
Ciullo  d'Alcamo,  387. 
Colonna,   or  delle   Colonne,  or    de 

Columnis,  Guido,  181  sq. 
Condorcft,  15. 

(UmqxiHc  de  ( 'onstarUinoble,  323. 
dontrasto,  387,  389. 
Conybeare,  25. 
Coniu,  l*rofcssor,  402. 
Couronnemeiit  L<»js,  le,  60  «'/. 
Courthope,  Mr,  140. 
Cronica,  General,  410. 
Curialitim,  Dc  Nwjis,  141. 


428 


INDEX, 


Dares  Plirygius,  171  sq.  and  chap. 

iv.  jiasaim. 
David  of  Dinaut,  18. 
Dictys  Creteiisis,  169  sq.  and  cli.ip. 

iv.  passim. 
Dies  Irce,  the,  9,  10. 
Dimlop,  28,  13-2. 

Eyil's  Saga,  3o0,  360. 
JEpistolce  Obscuroriim  Virorum,  16. 
Epopees  Frctn^aises,  les,  25  sq, 
Erigena,  John  Scotus,  17. 
Eschenbach,    Wolfram    von.    126, 

251-256. 
"Eternal  Gospel,"  the,  18. 
Exeter,  Joseph  of,  3. 
Eyrhyggja  Saga,  350. 

Flora,  Joachim  of.  18. 
Fronde,  Mr  J.  A.^  55. 

Gautier,  M.  Leon,  25. 

Genesis  and  Exodus,  202. 

Geoffrey,  Gaimar,  98. 

Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  94  sq.  and 

chaji.  iii.  jiassim. 
Geotfroy  de  Villehardouin,  323  sq. 
Gerard  de  Roussillon,  44. 
Gielee,  Jacquemart,  291, 
Gildas,  91. 

Gloucester,  Kohert  of,  204  sq. 
Golias  and  Goliardic  Poems,  4  sq. 
Gottfried  von  Htrasburg,  242-246. 
Gran  Co7iquesta  de  Ultramar,  410. 
Grandes  Chroniques   of  St   Denis, 

327. 
Grettis  Saga,  351-360. 
Guest,  Dr,  218  sq. 
Guillaume  d' Orange,  59  sq. 

Hallam,  28. 
Hamilton,  Sir  W.,  15. 
Hartmann  von  Aue,  246-251. 
Ilavelok  the  Dane,  207,  208. 
Haureau,  De  la  I'hilosophie  Scol- 

astique,  14  note,  19. 
Ileimskringla,  344,  361. 
Heinrich  von  Veldeke,  242. 
Henryson,  150,  272. 
Ilistoria  de  Prailiis,  153. 
Horn  (King),  208,  209. 
Hunt,  Leigh,  279. 
Hysminias  and  Hysmine,  140,  377 

sq. 


Iter  ad  Paradisum,  154. 

Jacopone  da  Todi,  8. 
Jeanroy,  M.  A..  270. 
Joachim  of  Flora,  18. 
John  of  Salisbury,  17= 
John  Scotus  Erigena,  17. 
Joinville,  Jean  de,  328,  329. 
Joly,  M.,  15L 
Joseph  of  Exeter,  3. 
Jus  de  la  Fcuillie,  318-321. 

Iviilbing,  Dr,  166  note. 
Kunig  Rother,  237= 
Kormak's  Saqa,  347,  360. 
Kudrun,  233-236. 

Lambert  li  Tors,  157  sq. 
Lamiarecht.  156. 
Lang,  Mr,  331. 
Lanson,  M.,  83. 
Laxdtda  Saqa,  349. 
Layamon,  98,  99,  192-196. 
Lombard,  Peter,  17. 
Lorris,  William  of.  300  sq. 
Loth,  M.,  143. 

Mahinogio7i,  the,  105. 

Madden,  Sir  Frederic,  97. 

Malory,   Sir  T..  104  and  chap.  iii. 

passim. 
Manasses,  379. 
Map  or  Mapes,  Walter.  4  sq.,  58, 

100  sg.   ■ 
Marcabrun,  368 

Marie  de  France,  285.  286,  311. 
Martin,  Herr,  290. 
Meon,  276. 

Meung,  Jean  de,  300  sq. 
Meyer,  M.  Paul,  151  sq. 
Michelant,  M.,  159. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  15. 

Minnesingers,  the  minor,  261-264. 
Missa  de  Potatoribus,  4. 

Nennius,  91,  92. 
Nihelungenlied.  227  sq. 
Nicetas,  379. 
Njal's  Saga,  348. 
Nut-Browne  Maid,  the,  271. 
Nutt,  Mr,  135. 

Occam,  William  of,  17,  18. 
Orange,  William  of,  59  sq. 


INDEX. 


429 


Orm  and  tlie  Onnulum.  196-198. 
Oiol  and  the  Sty  lit  Ing  ale,  the,  203. 

Paris,  M.  Gaston,  '£),  102  note,  'Jl-J 

note. 
Paris,  M.  Paulin,  25,  97,  270. 
Pater,  Mr.  331. 
Peacock,  142,  279. 
Peter  Lombard,  17. 
Peter  the  Spaniard,  18. 
Prantl,   Geschichte   dtr    Logik,    14 

note,  19. 
Proverbs,  early  English,  203. 

Qiiintus  Curtius,  155. 


Raymond  LuUy;  18. 
liaynaud,  M.  G.,  270. 
Eenan,  M.,  201. 
Reynard  the  Fox,  286  S'/. 
Rhys,  Professor,  136  sq. 
Roliert  of  Gloucester,  204  sq. 
Robin  et  Marion,  317,  318. 
Roland,  Chanson  de,  29  sq. 
Romanco    of   the    Rose,    the, 


299 


sq. 


Romancero  Frangais,  27. 
Romanzen  und  Paslourellcn,  270. 
Roscelliu,  17. 
Ruteboeuf,  312,  313. 

Sagas,  339  sq. 

Santa  Maria  Egipciaca,  407,  408. 

Scotus  Erigena,  17. 

Scotus,  John  Duns,  18. 

Siete  Partidas,  409. 

Specimens  of  Lijric  Poetry,  209  sq. 

Strashurg,  Gottfried  von,'  243-246. 

St  Victor,  Adam  of,  8. 

Sully,  Maurice  de,  323. 


Swinburne,  Mr,  3.J1,  367.  370. 

'Ilieodorus  Prodromus,  37!*. 
Thomas  of  Celano,  P. 
'J'homas  of  Kent,  158. 
Thorns,  Mr,  282.  " 
Ticknor,  Mr,  393  sq. 
Todi,  Jacoiiiiiie  da,  8. 
Tressan,  Comte  <le,  28. 
Tristram,  Sir,  116. 
Troubadours,  the,  362  sq. 
Troy,  the  Tale  of,  167  sq. 
Troves,  Chrestien  de,  101  sq. 
Turi)in,  Arelibislioj),  29. 
Tyre,  William  of,  327. 
Tyrwhitt,  25. 

Valerius,  Julius,  152  sq. 
Vcldeke,  H.  von,  242. 
Vigfusson,  Dr,  267. 
Villehardouin,  G.  de,  323  sq. 
Vincent  of  Beauvais,  18. 
Vogelweide,  Walther  von  der,  256- 

261. 
Vol.'iunfja  Saga,  228,  229. 

Wace,  98. 

Walter,     Archdeacon     of    Oxfonl. 

See  Geofl'rey  of  Monmouth. 
Walter  of  Cliatillon,  15.5. 
^\^'llther  von  der  Vogelweide,  256- 

2'il. 
Ward,  Mr,  164. 

Warton's  History  of  Pottry,  139. 
Weber,  163. 

William  IX.,  of  Poitiers,  364. 
William  of  Tyre,  327. 
Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  126,  251- 

256. 
Wright,  Thomas,  209. 


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